Help: winecommune.com wine was corked

Salut/Hi Vincent,

le/on Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:09:11 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Oh dear!! What a shame, but of course the seller isn't in any way responsible for that. Your only real recourse if you lived in Franc, would (or might) be against the winemaker.

I'm afraid it is.

Usually, because they usually can lean on their suppliers, AND because they often get substantial margins.

Nope. Though you could write a "furious of Forgès" (which is the town I live in) letter to the winery (you could do it in English, or Murrcan) complaining that their wine was corked, and why don't they use screwcaps.

Actually, I'm surprised that winecommune was surprised. Corked bottles do happen, about 5% in my experience. While one has recourse with a restaurant or a retailer, one doesn't with auctions. In fact, if one does a google serach on this group for "dale" and "recourse", you'll see my stock reply to people who are hoping to sell bottles they own- expect about 20% less than retail , mainly because of the fact you have no recourse for corked or damaged bottles.

I'll check with guys I know who work for Zachys Wine Auctions, even there (where there's an actual auction house) my assumption is that when I buy a bottle at auction, the risk is all mine.

I'm sorry for your loss (go Stelvin!). But I personally don't expect the seller to assume the loss in a situation like this.

I agree with Dale here. Unless you are a really big outfit, it's tough to take a loss on every corked bottle (and Dale's right: 5% is about the average) Even

snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net wrote in news:1105483369.268796.140450 @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

The lack of knowing where to complain, probably has kept the pressure off of the top wines since that is where the longest cellared one are.

Even in my limited cellar I have at least twenty bottles whose origin is but a guess at this point. I am just not anal enough to keep records like that.

Exactly. Or as Ian points out, the real complaint should be with the winery, not whatever middleman.

But I have to say that, especially in the cases of the wines I mentioned above, I've had so many GREAT bottles from these wineries that I don't feel like faulting them for the few unlucky corked bottles. It's not like they did it on purpose!

And as a gal what likes a natural cork (I'm not AGAINST screw caps, don't get me wrong) I'd better just keep my mouth shut about what goes along with it. e.