I ordered a case of Spanish Garnacha from a NY retailer. The package arrived yesterday and it looked normal. I opened it and the cardboard trays were soaked and the bottles were
wet. I thought, broken bottle. It would have been my first ever. I removed all of the bottles. None were broken, but one was empty. It looked to be intact, but when I removed the capsule, there was no cork. Somehow a bottle got filled but not corked. It got a capsule and a label and made it all the way from Spain to the retailer’s warehouse and didn’t leak until
it got laid on its side in my shipment.
It’s never happened to me. But I’ve heard about people getting uncorked bottles with capsules and sometimes the wine even being fine.
When I worked in retail, we caught this maybe 2-3 times a year when stocking the shelves. So while it is rare, it is a very real phenomenon.
It happened to me once at Spark’s steak house. The waiter brought out the bottle of Barca Velha from the 1980s, and when he took off the capsule, found another capsule, but there was no cork in it. He then did this weird pantomime where he started looking without success for the cork in the bottle, smelled it, found it sound, and started decanting it. It was beautiful, I told him so, but jokingly asked if I could get a discount for an incomplete bottle. He told me he wasn’t going to charge me for the extra capsule. I love those old waiters at Sparks; very quick and very witty.
I did get a piece of cheesecake on the house, and from that day on asked for Joe every time I went to the restaurant. And every time he opened a bottle, there was another pantomime. I miss that place; a few years later Joe retired and I had a series of poor meals, and to be honest the steaks at Peter Luger were better.
This, although more in the ballpark of once every 1-2 years.
Once it was Rioja Reserva - which are supposed to be aged for a considerable amount of time in bottles before release.
Had it happen once. Complete freaking mess in the cellar, as the wine leaked out over several weeks.
I haven’t encountered a corkless bottle but a few months ago I opened a 1996 Pape Clement and found only this half cork. The other half was not in the bottle.
I’ve seen it happen once, I don’t think it was one of my bottles but I don’t recall the details of the wine.
I’ve had it occur 3-4 times over the years, but the amazing part is that there was never any leakage, and hence not knowable until the capsule was removed. Older wines for sure, and therefore always lead capsules.
3 or 4 times in the 35+ years of drinking wine. Have also had two corks in the bottle a couple of times, a half cork once (post #7) and multiple times of 2 capsules or none.
Edit to add the half cork was a 1990 Caymus SS drank around 2005. The wine was fine.