People are giving you flack but I actually (sort of) experienced the same thing and now its making me question things myself.
I keep most of my wine in offsite storage but have a small wine fridge that fits about ~40 bottles. I’ve been storing ~6 bottles RM Pinot 2023. I was reorganizing my bottles when I realized one of my RM bottles had wine residue (label stained) and thought it was odd. Upon inspection I noticed that for this particular one the cork had slightly risen. Granted its not the best wine fridge so at the time maybe I thought it was my fridge issue though have had no issues with any other bottle last 2 years.
Anyways, I drank it with a couple folks that night and thankfully wine tasted great, but certainly an anecdote that it may have been a winery problem…
R-M’s shipper accidentally shipped me a four pack of their chards, when I had put in an order for the cabs. I e-mailed Will on their website and he responded right away; advised me to enjoy trying their chards and advised me they’d get the cabs out to me right away. Which they did. They have always been super responsive for me.
I’m optimistic for a good response for you. Good luck!
That’s great service. I know little about R-M, and am not commenting on this transaction, though I have enjoyed their wines for years. What I would add more generally is that we have noted in many posts on this board that this is a very difficult time in the wine business. That likely goes beyond lower sales and lower revenue to fewer dollars spent on labor, people facing greater demands on their time and so forth. Of course we expect reasonable performance from all wineries, but a little understanding goes a long way.
Big RM fan and they’re one of very few allocations we’ve kept.
The benefit of living in DFW is I’m extremely aware of when shipments are sent due to the weather risks.
I ALWAYS open the box, verify the wines I ordered are indeed in the box, visually inspect, and do the “thumb test” (run my thumb over the top of the capsule) to see if the cork is raised.
Any issues I find I contact the winery immediately.
Clearly in this case the ‘horses have left the barn’ and these are tips you can use in the future. I’m not sure I saw if you’ve opened any of the bottles to see if there is evidence of high temperature exposure (understanding that those effects may not manifest until years later)?
I can vouch for the great customer service with RM. When my 2023 cabs arrived a bunch of the foil capsules were missing or torn on the bottles. I reached out to Will to ask about potential damage issues and he got back to me immediately. He explained the issue and was great to work with.
You tagged “corked” in this thread. I’m wondering if you did so in your message to the winery. Like, “Excuse me. I bought 6 bothles ftom your winery a year ago and just dicovered they’re all corked…” or something like that. If you came off looking like you were trying to get away with something or made it sound like the heat damage was likely on your end, that could explain why you only got one initial response.
Cork manufacturers recommend that after bottling the bottles be kept neck up for X hours, so the cork can expand. Then to flip all the cases so the bottles are neck down. Approximate two wineries world-wide do this. Most go neck down right away. (A few think neck down is silly. That with normal humidity a bottle can be neck up for years.) The risk is leakage through a seam. In my experience that’s rare. But, i suppose if there is some initial leakage, some jostling or pressure that wants to normalize could push the cork a bit. With notable leakage, too, I’d suspect the latter. With a sound bottle, it leaked then sealed.
Fwiw just because I opened the 2022 Rivers Marie Sonoma Coast Pinot last night with dinner. It was wonderful as they all have been over my years drinking them. Time to get this in the rear view mirror. These are wonderful wines and they provide great customer service.
Yeah, seriously. If you’re going to put a winery on blast, at least have the decency to provide all the relevant information. Avoiding all of the follow-up questions is suspect at least.
Reading this I totally fail to understand how this happened. The wine left the winery presumably in perfect condition, was shipped somehow, and I assume went straight into a temperature controlled environment, and a year later was cooked. Like others, I am curious about how it was shipped, the number of days it spent in transit, weather at the time etc.
I applaud the winery for returning your money, but can’t help feeling that you bullied them into this. But then I am also surprised that the winery did not respond to you in the first place. They have a deservedly great reputation.
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