I never said the auction house did not post the description correctly, but I was definitely not expecting what I got from that 1st bottle (or I would obviously not purchased it!). What I got from the 2nd bottle I would have anticipated as appropriate. That first bottle was way beyond anything I’ve seen (including wines 30-50+ old with much worse fills). For a 96, the fill was pretty good (I’d say maybe 2cm wine lost; and @ base neck). While the description was noted SSOS, it was slight - I’ve definitely seen much worse.
In any case I haven’t, nor would I, ask for a refund. I understand the risks of buying old wines at retail & auction. I will chalk this up as one bad experience and use extreme caution when buying from this house. However, if this had been my very first auction purchase, I would have assumed that this would have been more the norm than exception and would have never purchased at auction again.
As everyone says, the fine print in auction catalogues protects them just about 100%. My one experience to the contrary is sort of amusing. I was having lunch with a friend and we were following an on-line auction. I leaned over to reach for the salt and knocked his hand, resulting in his having spent $42,000 on a case of La Tâche. The auction house eventually took it back, but I doubt they would had he not been an established client. I told him to keep it and expect $52,000 in a year. He was not amused, nor was the auction house at the whole business.
Have you bought wines with signs of seepage before? If so, and have not encountered a dead duck like this, you have been very lucky indeed. The take-home lesson: signs of seepage = high risk.
These days the critics are so sophisticated that they would have to distinguish between freshly killed and long dead ants as well as between red and carpenter ants.
I’ve had in the last month a Congo Ravera 2006 and Produttori Barbaresco 2013 come out similarly brown and stinky. Clearly oxidised and I suspect some heat damage thrown in for good measure. Bad luck.
UPDATE: I finally got around to discarding the rest of this bad bottle (after I poured initial glass a few weeks ago, I recorked and left in area for bottle to be recycled). As much as I was surprised with the initial pour, the bottom of this bottle was just as surprising. I’ve seen sediment, but nothing like this!
Probably 2" of the bottom of the bottle was this gelatinous sludge, some chunks an inch square. It seems as if all of the pigment of the wine coagulated into these chunks (no, it’s not what it looks like ) I gotta think something happened during bottling? There was more than just oxidation that happened to this bottle.
I had the '96 Ch. St. Jean Cinq Cepages three times: Once at the winery, and twice from auction bottles that were purchased in/from excellent storage history. In all cases, it was notably closer to the bottle you’ve open and you stored from release and not to the one in the OP. I would agree that the wine seems ‘cooked’, heavily
once saw a 3 pk of SQN that had separated into an almost clear liquid and a coagulated mess. At the time someone on a wine board mentioned that it could be a bacterial issue that caused the “roping” of the wine. the coagulated did look like rope.
I think Jordan is interpreting you to say this was a bad sign for Barolo. But what you’re saying is that it’s OK for Barolo (because nebbiolo isn’t heavily pigmented), but other old wines should not look like Barolo.
No. I don’t think it’s a great sign for Barolo either. For Barolo though the color can result chiefly from sediment suspension so the only way to tell the true color is to look at a bottle that has stood up or been relatively undisturbed on its side for a long time. At least a month and more is better. That’s not going to happen in the context of an auction photo.
I’ve seen both of those issues, but I view them as separate. A partner of mine received a bottle of inexpensive red wine (I forget the details) as a gift once and for whatever reason left it standing in his office for decades. Even moved offices with it. By the time he retired, it was a (still unopened) bottle of clear liquid with a pile of red sediment at the bottom.
I was in my local wine shop in the early '90s when my guy asked if I wanted to see something. They had a bottle of (I think it was) the basic Borsao bottling and the distributor rep was there and they were demonstrating the flaw they’d discovered (and demonstrating it for me, since I happened to wander in at the right time. Really bizarre looking. Like a more viscous (and wine-colored) silly putty. I’ve never encountered it since.
I can think of no use to looking at the remains of an overly aged wine some weeks after said wine was opened. It doesn’t tell you anything other than the dregs have broken down into sludge. Which would be expected of course.
) I gotta think something happened during bottling? There was more than just oxidation that happened to this bottle.
