Worst wines you've had?

[Mike_Evans]

Putting aside jug and box wine and wines that had turned into chemical soup, there is only one answer that screams out: 1999 Martinelli Reserve RRV Pinot. Served blind at MoCool 2002. Absolutely vile.

I think Maureen can back me up on this one.

I thought it was the Blue Slide, but my memory is hazy (probably as a result of repression of the horror it produced). Didn’t Manuel nail it blind?

Actually I did. But admittedly tangentially. Were you at the table? I said I haven’t had a wine this vile since a Martinelli Jackass Hill Zin, which this resembles. And then it turns out …

I’m pretty sure I was at your table, as that matches my recollection (except for which person identified the wine). I said my memory was hazy . . . .

[Mark_Golodetz]

Is any caymus drinkable now?

Yes the 1985 SS

[Joe_B]

I’m still going with any vintage Ménage a Troi

Disgusting wine

I was gifted the Old Tavern wine from Moldova.

[Charlie_Carnes]

2005 Jonata alma, and 2003 Sloan I think are my lowest scored wines. I did not those wines!

[Mel_Knox]

Simon Farr, who ran Bibendum Wine for many years, suggested we visit a winery in the RussianRiver Valley. It had gotten a nice review for some oddball variety they were making. I won’t name it because the new owners deserve a break!! The old owner was kind of hit and miss. We are tasting a sample out of barrel and my first thought was that sewage had gotten into the wine. Simon looked at me and said, I just remembered we are late for an appointment. We bolted out of there and ended up chugging slurpees somewhere in Santa Rosa.

I still shudder when i drive by.

[Jim_Brennan]

2012 Caymus 40th Anniversary cabernet. Bought a bunch of liter bottles pre arrival for $60. It’s like trying to pour a jar of grape jelly down your throat. Instant gag reflex. Good news is I had this wine. Just sold them all at auction at 2.5X what I paid. Not my problem anymore

Worst wine I have ever had. Period. Charlie Wagner is rolling over in his grave.

Interesting. We tried it on release at a Berserker OL, since it was much discussed and controversial then. Then, to me, it was a solid bottom shelf grocery store wine that would be fairly priced around $12 (boring ripe fruit, propped up with oak superficiality). Parker’s review describes a wine that to him should rate about 90 pts., but he states how well IT WILL age, due to what’s on the label. Sounds like his label bias didn’t pan out.

Been seeing the current vintage of Caymus for $80 at the local supermarket… Who in the hell is paying $80 for that dreck!?!

[Jason_T]

I’ve had many horrific non-flawed wines. Many showed loads of heat, were soupy and sweet, and also had an extremity of nasty green extraction. Just vomit-inducing.

Some of those and some others had some degree of rotten taste, and not always rotten grape.

Seems like it would take a lot of effort to make a wine that bad - and while some were bottom shelf Chilean wines from TJ’s, other were from people proud of their work! I guess the easiest method would be: 1) Find the most brutal machine harvester ever made. Perhaps '50s era Eastern Bloc. 2) Attach a wood chipper. Why destem? Why sort our leaves and mogg? The more extraction the better, right? 3) Ferment in whatever vessels you can find for cheap. Don’t bother to cover. Once it sticks, give it another week or two. Pro tip: When the fruit flies start dying en masse, that’s a good time to press. 4) Oak? Why bother? Vanilla extract, if you like. 5) Once bottled, wait for the big scores. 6) (In most cases) keep waiting. 7) Scratch head, wonder what you could’ve done wrong.

This absolutely cracked me up. Thanks for the laugh, Wes.

[Jay_Miller]

A very nice former boss of mine gave out bottles of his home made wine as Christmas presents one year. I brought it to an offline and I cannot possibly improve on Chris Coad’s TN:

“Jay, who has claimed to be angling for the ‘biggest vintage differential’ award, opens the near end, a Giorla Family Winery Liebfraumilch ‘Happy Holidays’ 2005. Mmm, smells like canned peaches and applesauce. A sip, and it’s a lightly sweet wine, apple juicy, with a hint of Welch’s white grape juice. Soft textured, almost oily, with some tart Vitamin C tablet spikiness in the middle, which, it turns out, is really the finish. “Kit wine,” says Andrew sagely. We nod, wide-eyed. It’s hard to frag a wine called ‘Happy Holidays,’ and in truth I’ve had much worse from real commercial producers, so let’s just say it’s not my preferred style of wacky homemade chemistry experiment.”

[John_Glas]

Prisoner wine company comes to mind. Low 80s for me. I have even convinced people who thought they liked it to hate it!

[TimF]

Pinotage has come up twice now. What’s so bad with it? Never tried any even when I was there.

I’ve never had one that I disliked.

[TimF]

When I was first getting into wine I was very open to trying anything. I bought a bottle of Pinot Noir from Romania. Horrific. The folks saying Meomi make me chuckle. That’s a walk in the park in comparison.

[Gary_York]

I live in Virginia. So I stopped counting and taking notes a long time ago. Pinotage is fine as long as you like burnt rubber.

[Jason_T]

Prisoner wine company comes to mind. Low 80s for me. I have even convinced people who thought they liked it to hate it!

Careful what you wish for. If everyone woke up and stopped hating Prisoner, Caymus, Meomi, Rombauer etc that means they’d have to start buying wines we all like.

[DLown]

I still remember it was around 2004-2005 and I was a wine rookie and I would read the Parker scores and it made no sense to me why some Parker 98 would be $50 while another was $300. Then I drank a martinelli jackass hill. I forget the score and from who but it was high. 3 times I went back to the wine thinking something is wrong with me as I read a great note. I couldn’t power through a glass and I was about 28 years old. It was horrible in the sense it was so thick and strong it made Napa Cabernet taste as light as rose wine. Bottom line is was one of the biggest teaching moments for me that scores aren’t real (although I must admit I am still influenced to a degree).

[John_Glas]

[quoteJohn Glas wrote: ↑
Mon Aug 19, 2019 12:02 am
Prisoner wine company comes to mind. Low 80s for me. I have even convinced people who thought they liked it to hate it!
Careful what you wish for. If everyone woke up and stopped hating Prisoner, Caymus, Meomi, Rombauer etc that means they’d have to start buying wines we all like.][/quote]
Not worried about that. American wine drinkers will always love the sweet/ high alcohol wines. We have a few wine educators in MN jumping on the MN wine bandwagon.

[Ron_Slye]

Is any caymus drinkable now?

Yes the 1985 SS

The early 1990s regular bottlings are still drinking quite well, if properly stored.

[Chris_Seiber]

I liked that thread we had maybe a year ago or so where everyone was encouraged to pick one (expected to be) bad bottle lingering in their collection to open and to post about. We should do that again.

[Hank_Victor]

fortified Riesling matured in a tequila barrel.

[Bob_Davis]

Pesenti before Turley bought it. As we left the tasting room my wife said, “those were God awful”.

[Bryan_Carr]

I think it’s hard for me to rag on cheap wine as truly hateful, it’s doing its thing and it’s not for me, but it doesn’t really have any pretensions to anything else. Two Buck Chuck and I don’t hang out but he’s an honest enough guy.
I honestly don’t think that there is a Zinfandel I’ve ever thought was more than passable. Ridge is the best I’ve ever had and I’d only consider it “drinkable”. Most others vary between terrible and offensive, even darlings like Carlisle. Even worse than that, I thought their Mourvedre was perhaps the most painful thing I’ve ever drank in my life.
I just made some Pinot Noir for the first time, and bottled it last weekend. In a few months I’ll give it a try and maybe I’ll have a new nadir!