I'm becoming increasingly disturbed over recent experiences with my stash of Pesquera/Condado de Haza/Alenza wines. I've got bottles which include the 1996 Alenza , purchased from a reputable local wine warehouse, severa remainingl (of six) 2001 Pesquera bought off the overstock shelf from the same dealer in July of last year, and some '01 Condado de Haza I picked up (probably from Whole Foods) a couple years back.
The problems with the Condado go back a year. At least one bottle was definitely bad. Corked or something, but it was bad enough that I dumped it down the drain and opened a second bottle, which was better but seemed to have lost its edge. I had problems with at least two other bottles from that case, too.
Several nights ago I opened a bottle of the '01 Pesquera, and it was so overwhelmingly aromatic of brettanomyces that I stuck a cork back in the bottle and set it aside. I tried airing it out and opening it a day later, but it was still undrinkable.
A week ago I took a bottle of the '96 Alenza with me to a restaurant. (Got nailed $30 for corkage! Never seen anything over $15 around here before.) This was the first bottle plucked from a half-case purchased in 2005. The cork was streaked/soaked/sparged almost all the way out. There was a bit of mold on the top of the cork, but no apparent leakage. The wine steward dismissed the soaking, attributing it to intentional overfill. My personal experience, like I had with that bad batch of Palazzo Della Torre last year, is that corks so heavily streaked are either defective or storage/shipping conditions somewhere along the line were left wanting. However, much worse than the issue of the cork was the wine itself. The brett odor was so bad I thought I'd stuck my nose in cow flop. The very same astute wine steward agreed -- the stench was thick as a brick outhouse. We decanted the wine, of course, and eventually it tasted better than it smelled, but it never attained the richness and depth I expect from a wine of Alenza's caliber. Similarly, the pungent odor was present all the way to the very last drop. Needless to say, this detracted considerably from the enjoyment of what had now morphed into a $70 bottle of wine.
Something's not right here. Especially not at $25-40 a bottle. Brett contamination does not happen in the bottle, it happens at the winery. It's a sign that the storage or processing facilities are not clean.
I have 1998 Condado de Haza and 1996 Pesquera in the cellar, and I've had no problems with those. But I'm wondering if the reason there may have been six bottles of 2001 Pesquera on the overstock shelf was because someone else discovered they were problematic and returned them. As far as the '96 Alenza goes, I still have five unopened bottles. I was hoping to hang on to at least some of them for a few more years, but now I'm not convinced that's a good idea.
So here's the question:
Has anyone else out there had similar problems with Pesquera's (Alejandro Fernandez) wines, especially the several I've mentioned?
JJ