The fills are acceptable for the age of the bottles, but the leakage is the concern.
Hopefully there is no issue returning them since they leaked in transit.
You need to try a low fill bottle. I will be curious to know if the cork is desiccated with the top of the cork shrunken and the bottom having maintained a fragile seal due to contact with the wine. Sideways sloshing can break that seal just enough for minor seepage. Let the sharp tip of the Durand dig in without much downward pressure is my suggestion.
Good luck.
Thanks, Mark. Yeah, I have always passed on bottled with any “signs of past seepage.” The information I had was as follows:
Provenance: Purchased on release from reputable sources and stored in the home cellar of a SF Bay Area based collector. Hand delivered to ***
Label condition: One bottle lightly scuffed label; Two bottles lightly bin soiled label
Cork condition: Two bottles depressed cork
I always ship overnight priority (arrive by 1030am.) Calling them before opening the bottle is an excellent idea.
Everyone offering advice- you are wonderful. Thank you! This is moderately stressful (and I have to remind myself that I’m lucky that this is what I’m stressed out over…) but still, I truly appreciate everyone’s input!
I’m guessing that these would have been better off being shipped ground. It may be that the pressure differential in an unpressurized cargo air shipment was too much for the old corks. No problem with the seepage, but upon returning to normal external pressure they may have sucked in a bit of air, or maybe just the cork a bit.
They are still likely fine.
I’m in the camp of crap shoot for something 50 years old. I think many on here have been on both sides of that proposition. The seepage doesn’t look heavy and can be normal for the many of the previously stated reasons. I’d just stress letting them sit for a bit before testing one out given they just arrived.
Interesting, I always thought overnight air air shipment was the best/safest way to ship wine, but maybe it’s not?
this!
I’ve had bottles start seeping just because they were moved, especially if they had a couple of decades on them.
Maybe you’ll be able to get a refund, but I doubt it, and I’m not really sure - if one was being fair - that its warranted.
Wines that are at the half century mark are always going to have some risks, no matter what precautions you might take. Those will tilt the odds in your favor towards a good experience, but there aren’t guarantees. And it seems like the seller represented the items fairly. FedEx and UPS are not awesome nowadays, and we had a severe cold snap across the northern high Plains the last week.
That was my first thought. A couple other good possibilities posted. I’ll add one more possible factor. Perhaps the corks were fully saturated and dried out a little while they were stood up in processing. But, because there’d been no previous sign of seepage, and the leaking took place over such a short time, I doubt the wines were damaged in shipping. That wouldn’t be enough oxygen ingress. Chuck’s advice is good…to make sure there’s no further harm. But, if the wines were stood up too long, at some point, with oxygen getting in over an extended time, the wines were bad before shipping.
I should have mentioned the outcome here. I stood the bottles up for three days, then wrapped the necks in tissue. No further seepage has occurred. I also spoke to someone at the retailer, he documented the case, and said that if when I open a bottle I have an issue, they will make it right. I didn’t want to mention them when asking for advice but now I’m going to “out” them as K&L because their service was, as usual, outstanding. The person I spoke to gave me his personal cell phone number so I can contact him if I have any issues, and I have already placed another order!
I’ve never ordered from them, because they can’t ship to Illinois, but that does sound like great customer service.
Interesting, I always thought overnight air air shipment was the best/safest way to ship wine, but maybe it’s not?
If temps were hot it would be but ground is always my preference due to the lower cost and this time of year most places are good for shipping.
I thought we had discussed the pressure issue before and the answer was that planes with unpressurized cargo areas aren’t really a thing when it comes to FedEx/UPS/Etc in the US?
My understanding is that air cargo holds are pressurized similarly to passenger compartments, at about 8,000 feet or lower. They’re also kept above freezing. Air shipment is not a risk for pressure or freezing to my knowledge.
Maybe I missed a post, but does the condition with “depressed cork” cause anyone pause? I normally move on when I see that. Not sure if it suggests some cork movement in the past, but raises my eyebrows. That they leaked, perhaps correlated.