WTN: Unromantic holiday weekend wine results

[David M. Bueker]

Did some burgers on the grill with a friend from work today.

1999 Ridge Lytton Springs
Corked! Smelled like somebody had left the wet newspapers in a humidor. It was truly foul. First of my many '99 Lyttons to be corked.

1996 Sociando Mallet
2 for 2. Corked again. Not nearly as bad as the Ridge, but pretty bad. Even changed glassware before the second bottle.

The Roederer Estate sparkling wine was pretty nice - fresh and fruity with good mineral backbone. After that was gone we drank iced tea.

Ugh - my sympathies. Really sad how a nice meal with good friends can be spoiled just because of an archaic and seriously flawed seal.
(And it's a sad comment on much of the wine industry that something with a failure rate of around 5% is not just tolerated but considered an industry standard by some - whereas almost any other industry or product would never permit any product with that sort of failure frequency.)

All the more reason why I'll keep buying things under screwcap (thank you Selbach, Christoffel, Hirsch and so many other producers!) and actually improve the odds that I can enjoy what I spend money on.

[David M. Bueker]

I had been doing pretty well lately (not counting a corked tasting room sample while in Virginia), but this broke the string. Older bottles though. Ah well. Tonight's Alesia Pinot Noir was sound.

I've been pretty lucky lately but lost a '00 DDO Laurene tonight. The replacement--'02 Belle Pente Estate--may be the best Oregon Pinot I've had.

[David M. Bueker]

Belle Pente is very nice. Brian O'Donnell's sister (or is it sister-in-law...I can never remember) works at the same company as I do. For some reason she never brings me samples.