Comments on: Why Is My Wine Bad?

By: Winexpression » Blog Archive » Poll: What Do You Do With A Corked Wine?

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:25:31 +0000

[...] cork hasn’t been compromised. The first glass is poured, swirled, and …. wait a second. Something isn’t right, this wine smells like cork, cardboard, mold, or a wet basement. Or perhaps it smells fine, but on [...]

By: jatemack

jatemack — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:31:17 +0000

Hi Pamela,

Thanks for your comments (that’s a funny story). I personally feel that most people do have a sensitive enough palate to taste these defects, however, they haven’t been told that these aren’t desirable/wanted flavors in wine, and out of not wanting to sound ignorant or insulting they avoid mentioning it to their host. You would think that the staff would never want to serve a bottle that was off or bad, which a new taster would associate with their brand from then on, but perhaps they want to avoid the embarrassment of grabbing a new bottle.

It seems the best way to handle the situation would be to educate the customer: asking them if they’ve ever tasted a corked wine, pouring, then remarking that sometimes this happens and here is what you should look for to determine if your bottle is bad…..

By: Pamela

Pamela — Mon, 26 May 2008 05:25:58 +0000

I recall visiting a winery tasting room and several patrons where commenting on how great the wine was. As I received a pour from the same bottle, I realized the wine was corked and discretely pointed this out to the person pouring the wine. It’s a shame that tasting room folks don’t sample the wines before they pour the wine; who knows how many consumers drink a corked wine without knowing it. On the other hand, I question the sensitivity of people’s palates. Many of my friends cannot depict a corked wine verses a non-corked wine, which is a shame.

Pamela @ enobytes