I’m not sure this will be all that illustrative for others, but it’s a first for me to have two undrinkable bottles of wine. A family member has an excellent cellar in terms of construction and design. It’s got temperature and humidity control, back ups, and back ups to the back ups. It’s pretty impressive (to me). This past weekend I got to choose some bottles to pull. The first, 1998 Vieux Telegraphe La Crau rouge, was absolutely dynamite. So smooth, velvety, elegant, really great. Sometimes I read people saying that Chateauneuf du Pape is heavy or overly alcoholic or similar, but this was perfectly balanced and had a lot “higher toned” flavors rather than being “lower” or “heavier” or “richer” in flavor. Bright and elegant were the words of the night.
Next I chose Gruaud Larose 2000 as I’ve never tried the vintage or Chateau, so I was excited. First sip was a sour but I thought maybe it was whatever I had last eaten before this. Gave it some time, swirled it around, chit chatted, and went back for a second taste. Sour as can be. I’ll add that years ago I found out that I am not affected by TCA so I know it wasn’t corked. My family member was the second owner, and I’m not certain but highly likely that they bought them from (EDIT: asked to remove the name). It was awful and undrinkable, we all agreed. I went back and got a second bottle of Gruaud Larose 2000 and this one was slightly better but only just. It was truly undrinkable.
After that I chose 1988 Domaine Tempier and that was another winner. Still though, wine of the night was Vieux Telegraphe. My guess/belief is that the bad wines got “cooked” somewhere along the line before being put into my family member’s cellar. One interesting note is that under the capsule the Vieux Telegraphe cork had a hole or tear in it (see photo below). I looked at the bottom of the cork and I didn’t see that the hole travelled all the way through the length of the cork, but I had not seen that before. To be clear, the capsule was completely intact, it had not been Coravin’d, etc. Regardless the wine was gangbusters. The first of the two bad Gruaud Larose corks had some fuzz/growth on it (photo below) but the second did not. Both were awful, and I have not poured out a wine in more than 15 years, and never two bottles in a night. Not sure if any of this is useful for others, so this may just be me documenting this for my own future reference.
“years ago I found out that I am not affected by TCA so I know it wasn’t corked.”
There is no such thing as a person not being affected by TCA (or a person whose experience of the wine isn’t affected by TCA). I think what you are saying is that you aren’t sensitive to (or able to detect) the specific tell-tale smell of TCA…many people actually don’t experience that specific smell in a corked wine (although it is possible that if the TCA level were high enough, you might). However, your experience of the wine itself will STILL be affected, and the wine will seem flat, dead and inexpressive.
All that said, your description of the wine being sour does not sound like a typical TCA expression (unless it were in a very high-acid wine, like maybe a particularly tart Northern Rhone that was corked)…It sounds like (as you suspected) maybe the wine saw some high temperatures at some point and became stewed (often giving a sour or stewed tomato character).
Back in the day I got two bottles of 2000 Chateau D’issan in the great Costco bdx dump, I cellared them perfectly for years and they were both heat damaged or had some kind of flaw (definitely not tca). I’ve had many many other bottles of 2000 bdx that showed great but those two were duds.
I can only respectfully disagree about what my experiences have been. For example, I have had an opportunity to go side by side of two otherwise identical bottlings where one was identified as corked/TCA by a sommelier. The first was also found by others in the room (non-sommeliers, just wine drinkers) to be unacceptable and undrinkable due to TCA. The second was found to be proper, correct, acceptable. To me, they both tasted identical and I was not able to discern anything off about one nor superior of the other: no smell or flavor of cork/TCA nor any experience of flat, dead, inexpressive. Perhaps I’m unique or perhaps the research into TCA is as of yet incomplete. I had originally aimed for brevity, but perhaps my experiences contrary to the one you described may be noteworthy. Regardless, I consider myself lucky.
While what you describe doesn’t sound like TCA or Brett, many older Cordier wines did have noticeable Brett. Given both bottles were bad, I would suspect heat damage.
I have had pretty mixed results with older Cordier bottles, some quite good and others down the sink.
1998 is at the end of the classic CDP era - things went to crap in the early 00s (known as the early alcoholic fruit soup era), depending on the Domaine.
Gruaud Larose is a poster child for Brett. Sweaty saddles and band aid in spades. Haven’t had the 2000 but my suspicion is this is the culprit. Some people love the merde, others not so much!
TCA affects your perception of a wine, not the wine itself. Some people dont have the receptor for TCA, so corked wines are perfectly fine to them. Anecdotally, from the several such people i know, thats about 1 in 20. Lucky them.
