Fwiw, i have 02 Suchots bought upon release from woodland hills and perfectly stored that has a puffy capsule.
Bummer of a thread. Hope they all turn out ok.
Some of my 2008’s have seepage. Came thru envoyer. All of these bottle have a very high fill level, and it could be that there are analogies with Leroy, which I understand is notorious for high fill levels and some seepage.
I bought Clos Vougeot and Vosne Beaux Monts from Zachys, and took delivery over 1.5 years ago. Had serious seepage in 2 of the 3 btls of Clos Vougeot and also in 1 of the 3 btls of Beaux Monts. Zachys offered to refund, but we decided to open the leakers last Christmas with family. The wines showed beautifully, especially the Clos Vougeot, a great wine.
Over the years, I’ve seen many leakers from this domaine. Most of the wines have been fine, but my '02 Murgers was cooked.
With leroy tho it’s not a majority of the bottles having seepage, from everyone’s reports it seems like more bottles have seepage than those that don’t with HN.
Yes, I excerpted from a post on BR - it was up under a pseudonym, though, so I was unsure about attributing it, beyond mentioning the web. Thanks for chiming in.
The other source was PC, who apprised me of the situation when I called to schedule delivery of my bottles. I find they are being straightforward. They may not have been aware of the problem when their early H-N shipments went out, and, if these wines indeed cannot be returned up the distribution network, stand to take a substantial hit, I imagine - what would insurance cover, in a situation like this?
FWIW I have his CV, NSG Murgers, NSG Villages from 2010 and they have all had the problems described above. I have consumed 1 CV, 1 Murgers and 2 NSG Villages and none have shown any signs of heat / oxidisation / etc. These were all purchased here in Switzerland and they all came directly from the domaine to the point where I purchased them.
I freaked out when I saw them on arrival and I did a lot of reading to figure out “what” could cause this (they were shipped to Switzerland in Nov so heat was immediately ruled out). I did find somewhere out there in cyberspace that HN soaks his corks before inserting them…I have NO IDEA if this is accurate. But it helped me sleep better at night…
This sounds a lot like the old problems with 1989 Beaucastel, which I thought were attributed to the corks themselves. I have bottles with no significant ullage and others with several inches. The worst have substantial leakage and usually puffed capsules. There was never any sign of heat damage.
I had no idea of this issue until recently - I opened one of the 7 bottles of $35 Murgers I got from PC and it was fantastic. It did have some CO2 in it as so many Burgundies do these days. No seepage or raised corks noticeable on any of them. If other people are noticing these problems in bottles from all sorts of different sources, I have to suspect this is the CO2 popping the corks out, not heat damage. It’s hard to believe the bottles would have gotten cooked at the domaine. And there wasn’t even a hint of heat damage in my bottle, which came from the same place as everyone else’s.
Yes 2 of my 3 2010 Malconsorts had seepage on the outside of the bottle. Didn’t open the capsule on the 3rd. I was offered a refund from Chelsea Wine Market on all of them but chose to keep the bottle. I opened a CM with obvious on bottle seepage and it was really tasty juice…and that’s what convinced me to take a leap of faith on the rest of the wines.
anyone know if this was solved for subsequent vintages? or are we going to start hearing about those too?
PC was unaware of the problem early on in their H-N shipments. I pointed the problem out to them, which they were unaware of, when I picked up my bottles. They immediately offered to take back bottles that I didn’t want. They also checked their reefer transport reports, and the temp was in the expected range during the entire shipment from Europe.
I find it very hard to believe that CO2, not from an active fermentation, could cause this without the wine heating up.
If people are reporting the same problem on bottles in Switzerland, it can’t be a shipping/import issue.
Has seepage been a problem for any of the other producers who bottle with some CO2, like Fourrier?
Bought 2010 Murgers from a reliable source and all bottles had seepage. I also have some 2010 Petits Vougeot (bought from PC) and those seem fine. Those are the only 2010s HN that I have.
I picked up my bottles today. I haven’t pulled any capsules but there are no external signs of seepage. One bottle had a slightly puffed capsule. Fill is almost at the cork on all the CMs and less than 1/4" below the cork on the Vougeots. I wouldn’t have suspected anything from the way they look.
Do they use Reefers now for wine transport to the US?
I knew they did not in the past.
Are you asking about Premier Cru here (multiple importing paths have been discussed here)? Anyways, PC uses reefers (with built in temp monitoring/reporting) and has for a long time.
Yep – same here – both on the wine’s showing, and on keeping the rest of the bottles. Not that I’m thrilled about it.
Side note – I agree with the various posters that this doesn’t seem like a heat issue to me. Corks or CO2 the more likely culprits – something on the production line.
Perhaps I’m a slow learner, so I picked up some '11s about a year ago (after the experience with the '10s); they seem fine – no signs of seepage whatsoever.
I wondered about high fill, when very modest variations in temperature can cause seepage.