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+--- Thread: Corked or Cooked or Just Plain Bad? (/thread-18603.html)
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- Stealthman - 11-18-2000
Hi, it's great to be on this board, I've been reading it for almost a year now and have enjoyed it tremendously. I was wondering if someone could go into a little more detail as to what one is looking for when describing corked wine. My friends and I usually drink from 40 to 60 bottles of wine a month at home from BV Coastal to Lokoya and over the past couple years have run into more than our share of 'funny' bottles. Unfortunately this occurance seems to be more prevalent in expensive wines than cheap ones. Our first bottle of '97 Caymus SS had purple cork syndrome, inside, alongside, outside, as if it were dropped in wine before seated, but it did not leak. The wine was dead, virtually no fruit left, though did not taste foul, somewhat like a bottle of '85 Clos du Bois AV right now ('cept not musty!) . In the last year we have opened a '94 BV George same thing, though I would guess that this wine was cooked as I imagine that a corked wine over this amount of time would just plain taste bad like a bottle of '93 Berringer Reserve we would have poured down the sink had it not been for the good retailer I bought it from who was more than willing to refund. As a side note I have good storage conditions in a celler I built and I buy both from wineries and the entire retail gamut. I try to buy no wine from retailers (for cellering) from the first big heat to when I can tell inventories have turned from summer. Any help?
- Thomas - 11-18-2000
Stealthman, you are not going to like this answer: it simply is impossible to give information about what might have been wrong with a wine without having the experience of smelling and tasting it. Your description could be the cork, but then again, it might not, especially if there is no mustiness.
A cooked wine is essentially an oxidized wine. When cooked, the wine will seem like sherry or madeira, hence the term, "madeirized" which means oxidized. The two wines I mention are purposefully oxidized, but this is not a good thing to happen to red table wines.
Remember this: there is no practical evidence that a corky wine is the fault of the winemaker or winery--it can happen to a cheap or an expensive wine because the fault is generally in the cork. As for cooked wine, that can be the fault of poor storage conditions anyway along the distribution pipeline, or a bad cork that causes leakage, or simply bad winemaking practices.
- Randy Caparoso - 11-18-2000
Stealthman:
Sounds to me that you drink more than your share of wine, and so you know a good one when you taste it. Always start with common sense -- YOUR sense of what is good, and not-so-good.
"Corked" wines are subtle to obvious. Either way, if it smells like damp, wet wood or cardboard, whether than like fresh fruit or bottle bouquet (the latter more common in wines that are at least 10 years old), then most likely it's "corked" -- or tainted by the bacteria that causes this smell.
The Cabernets you found to be tasteless, however, are puzzling, since they're fairly young -- and it's hard to "cook" young, vigorous Cabernets. You see, I live in Hawaii where it's always warm -- and even bottles stored in super warm temperatures take years and years before actually being "cooked" to flavorlessness.
Therefore, I would surmise that what you are often finding is that wines are either "dumb" -- that is, going through a rough, tannic stage during which fruit qualities are simply buried under the intrinsic weight of the wine -- or simply not that good in the first place.
But it's hard to make that judgement from afar. Like I said, you have to trust YOUR taste and experience -- which you seem to have a good amount of already.
- mrdutton - 11-19-2000
RANDY - Welcome back. Long time no hear from you.
Although you and I tend to argue like mad dogs, I really enjoy reading your comments. Thank-you for remembering we are here......
Welcome back! Understand you have been on a sojourn of sorts.
- winoweenie - 11-19-2000
Let me add my welcome back to the board along with the others Randy. And MrD , believe me Botofuga and Randy are very well acquainted from Jerrys` Kids Board. I`m sure there`ll be more than one or 800 interesting posts. Now if we can just get Wallace out of retirement we`ll have the full compliment again winoweenie.
- mrdutton - 11-19-2000
WW, every time I log into this place I learn something new.
I know more about wine today than I ever did back in 1999 when I first logged onto this site. Yet, I still know so very little...... and have so much more to learn.
The credit for my expanded knowledge goes out to EVERYONE here, but I must give my compliments to IK, you, Bucko, CCK, Foodie, Winecollector, Randy and recently, Roberto for being my mentors.
- winoweenie - 11-19-2000
MrD, I`ll drink to that. `Course I drink to Gas Stations Openings. WW
- Innkeeper - 11-19-2000
If any of you would like to know how much you've learned around here, try this drill. Go to Search. Type in a topic that you are moderately, but not passionately, interested in. Then put your own moniker at the bottom. Then review the search results in chronological order (from earliest date). Very interesting.
- mrdutton - 11-19-2000
True...............
- Stealthman - 11-20-2000
Thanks for the info, from what I'm now understanding I think we have run across two to three potentially corked bottles over the past year, one cooked (the '94 George was purchased this past summer), and who the heck knows with the Caymus SS. As you guys know it has a big ole cork and as soon as I pulled the foil I thought, uh-oh! It had not leaked, but it was spotted on top with wine stain and when pulled the cork sides were also stained with spots of dried wine. Not the typical, wine had worked its way up the sides of the cork stain, that is typical of bottles that have set for a few years. I have one other bottle, purchased at the same time that I'm tempted to pull the foil on just to see the top and sides of the cork. Anyway thanks again and here's to WS not naming any of the wines I drink to any of their dumb lists.
[This message has been edited by Stealthman (edited 11-20-2000).]
- chittychattykathy - 11-20-2000
So folks, when, where is our get together???
- winoweenie - 11-20-2000
Stealthman, I tend to side with Randy on the younger wines being Dumb. I`ve had 2 bottles that sure fooled me , and don`t know the exact reason. One thing I`ve learned is that when you cart wines any distance they need rest or they will act like retards. Most of the vintners I know suggest at least a 2 week rest before opening any wine carted from the factory. I have never had a Caymus SS that was anything but marvelous. The Georges 94 is a marvie bottle. You say the Caymus SS was a 97? This wine has just been released. Did this happen in the last month? Strange! winoweenie
- Stealthman - 11-21-2000
winoweenie, yes the SS was '97. I bought a couple bottles on October 3rd from a retailer in Sacramento (top, top notch retailer) and decided to sample one a week or so later to determine if I wanted to chase down a few more bottles to lay down. I can't say I've opened a million bottles of wine, but we've opened a few [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img] the last several years and I've never seen a cork with stains like this one.
- winoweenie - 11-21-2000
Stelth that is indeed strange. Again you may have opened the wine before it had rested from the trip, but that doesn`t explain the cork. If perchance you still have the cork, I`d suggest sending it to Chuck Wagners` attention at Caymus and see if he can offer some insight. He`d definately want to see it. winoweenie
- Stealthman - 11-22-2000
winoweenie,
That's a great idea, I do indeed still have the cork as I have a little 6 bottle rack we put poor beautiful bottles that have given their souls for our enjoyment so we can remember them long after the hangover has passed. That bottle is in that rack. If we can get the foil to slide off intact we try to make a half-assed attempt to refoil them to their original full beauty after refilling them with water and 15 drops of red, 10 drops of blue food coloring. This bottle was left empty as I couldn't get that gol-danged monster cork back in without herniating myself! Just so happens I was going to go over to Napa next week to chase down a couple large formats from BV as I keep seeing people with copies of Wine Drivvel in hand walk out of retailers with cases and cases of my favorite blend [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/frown.gif[/img] and though my stash is in place I think I better get my biggies quick. I'll make an appointment with Caymus for a tasting and wag the cork and bottle along with me. Now I gotta go dig the other bottle out which unfortunately I buried two weeks ago when I reorganized, yikes!
- winoweenie - 11-22-2000
Great Idea. The main thing is Chuck Will be able to spot something that mite cause him a lot of trouble in the future. Hope Charlie is still feeling better. WW
- Stealthman - 11-25-2000
Well I have some kind of bad luck I guess. On Wednesday, I grabbed a bottle of '97 BV Latour and a bottle of '97 Insignia at Bev&More for a little Thanksgiving horizontal fun. In the crush to get out of there I failed to notice the dried wine on the foil of the Insignia...fast forward to Turkey Day...pull foil on Phelpps, notice dried wine on foil and cork, think maybe it leaked from another bottle, pull cork, pour, you guessed it, oxidized wine. Well I don't need to tell you Georges won this taste test. Bev&More was cooperative in exchanging so I guess we'll do the Phelpps tonight by its little ole lonesome. Anywho, I dug to the deepest depths of my celler today to pulled the other SS, pulled the foil and much to my thankfullness, cork looked poifect! Put her back to rest for a few years.
- Stealthman - 11-25-2000
On a much better note we began work on a '94 Dow vintage port after dinner...MMMMMmmmmmmm!
Man that's some goooood stuff.
- Stealthman - 11-27-2000
The final chapter. Arrived at Caymus this afternoon for a tasting and thankfully they were pouring the SS, while shrouded in tannins this will be a wonderful wine after a good several years in the cellar. My hats off to them for pouring this wine complimentary. However, after spending $500 in their sales office, carefully checking my bottles, and politely waiting for their other customers to leave so as not to bring up little unfortunate production details in front of the paying crowd, I would have expected them to be a little more interested in problems customers have found in their wine. The first gentleman I spoke with was interested and referred me to a young woman, who's name, unfortunately I don't recall, who's only interest was in telling me Caymus's refund policy on defective product and getting me out of there. She was quite insistant that this must have been a problem in the distribution chain and was probably the result of excessive heat which is rediculous when one looks at the cork, which I ended up not offering to her as she was not interested in this situation. Sorry I just said screw her. I guess she thought I was looking for free wine which was also rediculous as I had already made my purchase and put it away in the car before I even mentioned the bad bottle. It is very sad what the Napa Valley is coming too. I had another somewhat unpleasant experience with Opus last year, that really left a sour taste in my mouth as well. I used to buy a bottle or two a year, plus a half case or so of Overture from them, last year they double billed a credit card of mine that took weeks and weeks to straiten out (ended up they double billed EVERYONE who bought at the winery that day), anywho, I ended up going over there to get some resolution on the whole affair. While waiting for them to make a copy of my credit card statement I was left in the tasting room and asked if I'd like to PURCHASE a tasting while I waited for them to fix their mess. Maybe it's just me, but I thought that was tacky as hell for such an 'esteemed' organization. I actually had a good day overall though, thank god for BV and a little Heitz Inky PortO!
- Stealthman - 11-27-2000
I guess this should probably get moved to the Rants and Raves folder huh?...Sorry...