Sean P. Sullivan's Northwest Wine Report

80+ wines reviewed below, including the latest from Leonetti, Liminal, Rocky Pond, Airfield, Kiona, Tendril, Lone Birch, Stoller, and more.

I have at times been told that I am a conservative reviewer in terms of my scores. I don’t believe that to be true. Rather, I believe that differences in my scores and those from most other reviewers can be attributed in large part to the manner in which we each taste wines.

In short, I taste wines blind in varietal sets. When a person tastes blind, those scores are completely based on what is in the glass. That is not the case when tasting non-blind. There the reviewer is being influenced by a whole variety of factors. These include knowledge of producer and wine pedigree, vintage, price, and other things. To say otherwise would be insincere.

Imagine. In one case, you are tasting a wine blind trying to evaluate its quality based on your experience with a region. In another, you are aware that this is the top end wine from a producer widely regarded as the best in a particular growing region, and the vintage is thought to be the best of the decade.

Are those two wines both going to be considered in the same fashion and score the same? Of course they are not. In the latter case, the wine is getting a big leg up by pre-conceived notions.

You can test this easily for yourself. Give the same wine to two groups of people. Tell one group it is an expensive wine and was ‘Wine of the Year’ at a prestigious publication. Tell the other it was something you found steeply discounted at Cash & Carry. See how differently the two groups perceive the wine.

For this reason, if you look at publications that review wines blind in a controlled setting, such as this one, these scores will naturally be lower than those that are reviewing non-blind. This is not to say that scores from blind tasting are more conservative. Rather, I believe scores for reviewers rating non-blind are likely inflated in some cases by various biases introduced.

As a result, when comparing scores across publications, consumers will often see differences – sometimes very large differences – for the same wine. How should consumers or wineries for that matter interpret scores then?

Unfortunately, comparing scores across publications ranges from difficult to impossible because of four factors. The first is the manner in which the wines were sampled, blind vs non-blind, which I discussed above. The second is the environment in which the wines were sampled. The third is reviewer experience. The fourth is reviewer palate. I will explore each of these.

Tasting in a standardized vs. a non-standardized environment

All of the wines that I review are tasted in a standardized, controlled environment. This means that every wine is tasted in the same way under the same conditions. I taste in the same location, at approximately the same time, with the wines at the same temperature, and using the same stemware.

In contrast, some critics review wines in a variety of settings – at wineries, at home, at mass tastings, and sometimes a combination of all three. Some wines sampled at home might be tasted with 40 other wines, or they might be tasted individually with dinner.

To be clear, scores for wines tasted in a non-standardized environment – at home versus at a winery versus at a mass tasting – can’t even be compared to each other let alone scores from other publications.

These are radically different approaches. Subsequently, they will naturally produce very different scores, even for the same reviewer and the same wine.

Tasting in non-blind, non-standardized settings introduces biases that affects scores

A common place many reviewers taste wines is at the winery with the winemaker present. This naturally introduces biases.

I have confirmed this by comparing scores that I have given to wines when visiting a winery or meeting with a winemaker (these scores and notes are strictly for informational purposes and are never published) to scores for the same wines sampled blind and in a standardized setting (these are the scores that are ultimately published).

When I have done so, I have noticed that wines sampled blind and in a standardized setting typically score one to two points lower than they did when scoring them at the winery. I have seen as much as four points lower. It is extremely rare in my experience to rate a wine higher blind and in a standardized setting than I have when visiting a winery and taking notes.

Intellectually, this makes sense. Producers are excited about their wines and, when you meet with them to taste their wines, they are trying to get you, the critic, excited about them as well. And guess what? It works.

This means that wines tasted with the producer – or in fact even a producer who is a better pitchperson for their wines – have an inherent advantage over wines that are not tasted with the producer or where the producer does a less effective job at 'selling' the wine to the reviewer.

Is that fair? Shouldn’t we be judging the wine on its merits in the glass not the song and dance the reviewer is being given while tasting? Moreover, the consumer isn’t getting that same song and dance. They are just tasting the wine.

Many consumers have, however, had a somewhat similar experience. They are on vacation, tasting at the winery, and are being regaled by tasting room staff or perhaps the winemaker him or herself about the merits of the wine. They love the wine and buy some, only to arrive home and find it not quite as delightful. That is an example of the bias that can occur tasting in a non-standardized setting.

Mass tastings introduce biases that affect scores

Many reviewers also score wines at mass tastings. This also introduces biases. First, there is an effect from alcohol. You can register above the legal limit after tasting 100 wines in a day, even if you are spitting all of the wine. I have confirmed this with a breathalyzer on multiple occasions.

Second, do wines tasted with 100 others really have the same shot as a wine tasted with a few others and perhaps over a series of days at home or wines tasted at a winery with the winemaker present? Of course not. Yet many publications treat them as the same.

Why do many publications review in non-standardized settings? For one simple reason: It greatly cuts down on the amount of work they have to do.

For those doing mass tastings, it requires considerably less effort on the reviewer's part to have someone else collect, unpack, and organize hundreds of wines that the reviewer then tastes than to have the reviewer (or workers at a publication) do so. Similarly, it also involves less work tasting wines at a winery than having the wines shipped, unboxing them, and tasting them.

However, to me, it is more than worth the additional effort to taste blind and in a standardized setting to help remove bias and ensure consistency of process and therefore consistency across scores. Wineries deserve it; the wines deserve it; and consumers deserve it.

Reviewer experience

Another important factor to understanding scores is reviewer experience. This is true for both experience with the region in question and overall experience reviewing wine.

The example that I commonly give is Burgundy. I could fly to Burgundy, taste several hundred wines in a few days, score them, and then publish those scores. I’ve been tasting and reviewing wine for over two decades.

However, while I might drink and enjoy Burgundy regularly, I don’t live and breathe Burgundy. How relevant would those scores truly be? Would they be as relevant as someone who has been tasting wines from the area for decades? Likely not.

Similarly, if someone were to come to the Pacific Northwest with no knowledge of the region’s wines, I’m always interested to see what they might have to say. But those scores come with an asterisk because of the lack of experience with the wines, regardless of what the person’s experience with world wine might be.

Note that reviewer experience very much intersects with the biases introduced by how the wines are tasted. Let’s say I’m new to tasting a region, but I know that a certain producer is considered one of the best in the region. That makes my job easier, right? But what about the side project from the same producer that the reviewer doesn’t know about? It doesn’t get that same consideration, and the score might be negatively impacted.

We also see an intersection with large format tastings. When you are tasting a large number of wines in a single sitting, a lot of things can go wrong. One of them is the effect of alcohol. Another common one is tannin accumulation. This is when wines start to seem more tannic and bitter than they actually are.

For a reviewer with knowledge of a region, it’s pretty clear when this is happening. First, you start to notice more tannins on all wines and take steps to correct it. Second, even if you haven’t noticed, when you unblind wines, you might see wines that you thought were overly tannic that shouldn’t be based on prior experience. The reviewer without experience with the region just scores the wine poorly and moves on. The reviewer with experience backtracks to confirm the impression and make sure it wasn’t an error on their part due to tannin accumulation.

These are not merely intellectual considerations. I have seen examples in Washington where these exact scenarios have played out. As someone who has tasted the state’s wines broadly for 20+ years, the issue popped off the page. Unfortunately, that issue resulted in some very poor scores for a number of highly regarded wineries, all because of the reviewer’s lack of experience with the region. That is bad for all concerned.

Bottom line, experience matters. Experience with world wine also matters. A critic must always taste broadly and put wine in a larger context.

Personally, in addition to reviewing wines from the Pacific Northwest, I taste as broadly as I can, and I review and score those wines and compare my scores and notes to those of others. Bottom line though, experience with wine is no substitute for regional expertise.

Reviewer palate

The final factor is reviewer palate. Every individual has a unique palate as well as certain sensitivities and insensitivities. These sensitivities can potentially make one favor or disfavor certain wines.

The example I frequently give is wines from the Rocks District in Walla Walla Valley. These can be polarizing wines, where some people love them and other people very much do not, even if they have exceptional palates.

Some find this confusing, but I find these differences in perception understandable. What if a particular nuance of the wine that one person finds interesting, another is smelling or tasting 100 fold? (100 fold differences in sensory perception are not uncommon.) To the first person, it would seem pleasing, whereas to the second it would seem off-putting.

As I have stated elsewhere, when I taste and review wines, I am trying as best I can to put aside by personal preferences. That is to say, I am trying to rate the wine on its merits for the style in which it is being made, regardless of whether it is a wine I might personally want to drink at home. However, we all still have different sensitivities, more or less, to certain things. This can impact score.

How to compare scores across publications

Given that I review wines in a blind, standardized setting (and did so previously at Wine Enthusiast), the most direct comparison to my scores would be those from other publications that do the same.

There are three other publications I am aware of that consistently taste blind and in a controlled environment. They are Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator and Wine & Spirits. There the differences you see in my scores for the same wine are largely in critic palate and experience rather than the setting in which the wine was tasted.

For all other publications, the differences you are seeing could be due to how the wine was tasted (blind vs non-blind), the setting it which it was tasted (standardized vs non-standardized), critic palate, and critic experience as well as any combination thereof.

These compounding factors make it impossible to meaningfully compare across scores. Unfortunately, all consumers see is the score, not what is behind it.

Final thoughts

How wines are tasted is critically important to the scores the wines receive. For this reason, consumers should know and care about how wines are reviewed. Unfortunately, differences in how reviewers and publications taste and review wine is often largely opaque to consumers.

Few publications provide detailed information about how wines are sampled for review, in part because it is not in their best interest. It is my strong belief that all publications and critics should be transparent about the manner in which they taste wine.

Consumers should know if a wine was tasted blind in a standardized setting or non-blind at a winery with the winemaker or alongside 100 other wines or at home. It makes a difference.

I am advocating strongly here for blind tasting in a standardized environment when reviewing wines. To me, reviewers tasting each wine in a standardized environment should be non-negotiable. It’s the only way to ensure consistency across one’s own scores. At the very least, how a publication scores wines should be transparent to all.

The manner in which wines are reviewed shouldn’t just be important to consumers. It should also be important to wineries and retailers.

Many wineries and retailers go with promoting the highest score they have for whatever it is they are trying to sell. This is true even if the way in which the wine was scored can be somewhat dubious. This is understandable on some level; they are trying to sell something. The long-term effect of that, however, as we have seen, is score inflation. That leads to a plank all will eventually fall off.

I believe consumers, wineries, and retailers should be more selective. At the very least, consumers, retailers, and wineries should be aware of these differences and demand that publications and reviewers are more transparent about the conditions under which they taste and review wines. To me, the validity of the wine ratings themselves depends upon it.

This article is published under the main "Rating System" heading, "Interpreting Scores."

Last Thursday was Beaujolais Nouveau Day, celebrated the third Thursday in November. For me, Beaujolais Nouveau Day brings back memories of the early aughts.

Seattle Cellars, which was located in downtown Seattle on 2nd Avenue, had a Beaujolais Nouveau Day event each year. As the young release wines are not allowed to be sold until the Thursday prior to Thanksgiving, the retailer found a unique work-around.

They opened up their shop at 12 a.m. that Thursday, then poured and sold the wines. Adding to the amusement, employees dressed up in their pajamas, or at least exaggerated versions of them. Customers were invited to do the same. Having just moved to Seattle (for the final time) in 2000, this seemed like quintessential city life: going to a wine tasting at 12 a.m. where people serve just-released wines in their pajamas.

Alas, all these years later, much has changed. Seattle Cellars is long closed. Beaujolais Nouveau wines can be harder to come by due to supply chain problems. The wines are at times maligned by some as more marketing muscle than substance.

While the quality of nouveau-style wines can be variable, at their best, they can be an ephemeral, pure look at a vintage mere weeks after it has finished. Today I bring you good news. We can still enjoy nouveau-style wines, ones made right here in Washington.

Walla Walla Valley’s Itä Wines made a 2022 Nouveau of Zinfandel from Les Collines Vineyard. (Read my profile on Les Collines.) “Working with Primitivo for rosé made me think it could be appropriate for a really soft, bright, nouveau-style of wine,” owner/winemaker Kelsey Itämeri says of the inspiration.

Traditionally Beaujolais Nouveau wines are made from Gamay, with carbonic maceration used during fermentation. This is an anaerobic, intra-berry process, often done with the aid of carbon dioxide. It creates distinctive, fruity wines made in a drink-now style.

This is the second vintage of this wine for Itä. Itämeri says her first year was a learning experience.

“I realized I didn't have enough space between the top of the fruit and the top of the vessel,” she says. “I also didn't realize how important heat was for this process until I put the grapes outside in the sun because I needed the space. I thought ‘Oh my gosh. This smells amazing!’ I also ran out of CO2 on a Sunday, which is not a good day to run out of anything.”

This year Itämeri was better prepared. She also increased production. Whereas the 2021 vintage was more experiment than full-fledged offering at 25 cases, this year she made 116. There were other changes, such as using a bladder press instead of a basket press.

Still, making nouveau-style wines inherently has its challenges. One needs to get a wine fully fermented, bottled, and labeled in a very short period of time. However, in the case of the 2022 Itä Nouveau of Zinfandel, all of the pieces came together to create a wine that is truly beautiful. It’s fruit-forward and flavorful, with a whole lot of acid around it.

“It's just a very joyful wine,” Itämeri says.

Other Washington wineries are exploring the nouveau style as well. Next door to Itä, Hoquetus Wine Company makes a nouveau-style wine. J. Bookwalter has made a nouveau-style wine from Pinot Noir in the past. I am sure there are others.

Last Thursday I sat enjoying a glass of the Itä Nouveau of Zinfandel. I thought back to Seattle Cellars and all of the Washington wineries I first discovered there. It was there I first found Dunham’s Cabernet Sauvignon. It was there I first met Poppie Mantone and tried the Syncline wines. There I first found McCrea Cellars Syrah and many others that made me fall in love with Washington wine. It was also there that I had my ‘epiphany wine,’ but I will leave that story for another day.

Alas, like nouveau wines, all things are fleeting. But there is beauty in that too.

The Fall issue of Seattle Metropolitan magazine, who I’ve written for since 2010, is the magazine’s annual wine issue. This year’s issue, as in previous years, contains a variety of articles written by myself and other writers at the magazine.

You can find the overview article, Washington wine levels up, here. Next is Walla Walla tasting rooms that are the best hangs, by Allison Williams; another set of recommended Walla Walla tasting rooms by Allecia Vermillion; and a series of recommended bottles, by myself and Vermillion.

Next up is an article by Vermillion about women winemakers in Washington that I posted about previously; an article about what happens when smoke gets in wine by yours truly; an article on Walla Walla’s big food moment by Vermillion; Walla Walla travel basics by Williams; how hotels are changing in Walla Walla by Williams; and an article I posted about previously, Woodinville’s third act.

Enjoy!

Spanish family continues strong series of investments in Washington

Last week, I detailed the first half of my Top 10 all-time cork taint stories. Today, I bring you numbers 5 to 1. Read more about what cork taint is here.

5. Cork tainted bottle at a retail consumer tasting event

Back in 2001, I was at a tasting of Napa Valley wines at a retail wine shop in Seattle. We had all paid to attend the event, where numerous wines $100 and up were being poured. Everyone was giddy with excitement.

Two wine stewards went around pouring the wines to the group of people standing together. Then they gave a few moments for everyone to taste and appreciate the wine before we talked about it

“What do you all think?” one of the stewards asked after a few moments regarding the wine in our glass.

“It’s corked,” a voice said from the back of the group.

The wine steward looked at him quizzically for a moment, put his nose back in the glass, raised it up, and pronounced “It’s corked.”

The crowd audibly gasped in horror. I’m sure for many, it was their first experience with this producer. I’m also sure it was an experience that they told their friends.

4. Cork tainted bottle for review

Back when I first started reviewing for Wine Enthusiast (I was a contributing editor at the magazine from 2013 until mid-2022), I tasted a wine and thought it was good but by no means great. I gave it a middling score. When I pulled the bottle from the bag that was concealing the identity of the producer, I was quite surprised.

The bottle came from a very highly regarded producer in an exceptional vintage. I tasted the wine again to see if I’d made some grievous error, but my impression was the same.

Later, I poured the wine for my wife. As I noted in my previous article on numbers 10 through 6, my wife is more sensitive to cork taint than I am.

“What do you think of this wine?” I asked. “It’s okay,” she replied with indifference. I showed her the label, and her eyebrows arched in surprise.

The next day, I came back to the bottle. Now, it was now very obviously cork tainted. (Cork taint at low levels can become more apparent as a wine opens up.) I put a second bottle of the same wine back into my blind flights. There was a five point swing in score for the wine.

Have I had other bottles of corked wine where the taint has been enough to impact the score but not high enough for me to detect? I taste enough wine that the chances are 100%.

3. Cork tainted bottle with the winemaker

One year I was tasting a series of new releases with a winemaker. He knew that cork taint was a crusade of mine. I asked him how he approached dealing with the issue and how he thought the winery was doing overall in that regard.

He detailed the steps that the winery took to reduce the problem. He also noted that the winery had just had its spring release event the weekend before and had opened up eight cases of each wine, and none of the bottles were corked.

“I think we’re doing pretty well,” he said with confidence.

I put my nose into the glass of wine he had just poured, then pulled it up and said, charitably, “I think this wine is corked.”

What are the chances that this winery had poured all those bottles on their release weekend that had seemed fine, yet I just happened to get a corked bottle on this day at that exact moment? Not high.

BONUS: Cork tainted bottle at a Taste Washington seminar

Years back, I was moderating a seminar at Taste Washington, a consumer tasting event. Right before the seminar, the husband of a friend of mine said “I think one of the wines is corked.”

In what was in retrospect an embarrassing reenactment of my experience detailed in #6 with the roles reversed, I took the glass and smelled it. I did not detect any cork taint. I said “I’m sorry. I don’t notice anything.” The seminar was close to starting, so I went up to the front to be ready.

Of course, when we got to that wine in the tasting, someone seated near the same person said “This wine is corked.” Realizing there was a problem, I said “How many people are noticing cork taint on this wine?” A row of hands went up from everyone who had obviously received wine from the same bottle. I called in the service team, who I should note had originally proofed the wine, and they re-poured it.

Lesson learned: There is always someone who is more sensitive to cork taint than you are, and when they say a wine is corked, it’s best to believe them lest you embarrass yourself, as I did.

2. Cork tainted wine at a wine bar before dinner

My wife and I were out for a rare night on the town. We were going to dinner downtown, and then we were going to see a movie. We were thrilled to be out and about.

We took a bus downtown and arrived about 25 minutes ahead of our dinner reservation. “Why don’t we go and grab a quick glass of wine at [a particular wine bar]?” I suggested. My wife agreed.

We entered the restaurant and went to the bar. Offered drink menus, we looked at them hurriedly and made a selection, as we just had time for a quick drink. My glass came out, and it was cork tainted. This was, of course, disappointing.

I tried to get the bartender’s attention, as the clock was ticking. He apologized and poured me a new glass from a different bottle. I smelled it quickly, pronounced it fine, and let him go on his way. However, as I went back to it, I realized that it too was cork tainted. (Cork taint blocks olfactory signal transduction; it is not uncommon to smell it one moment and then not the next or vice versa for this reason.)

“Why don’t you ask for another glass?” my wife suggested. “We’re out of time at this point,” I replied with disappointment.

When the waiter brought the check, I said to him “It’s my mistake so I’m happy to pay for the glass, but just to let you know, the second bottle was actually corked too.”

He apologized, and I told him not to worry about it, as I didn’t pick the taint up when I checked the wine. He asked if I would do him the favor of smelling a glass from a third bottle of the wine. I obliged. It too was cork tainted.

“You know, we got a screaming deal on that wine,” he said shaking his head. “Well, now you know why,” I replied.

1. Cork tainted 100th month anniversary wine at a high-end restaurant

Since my wife and I started dating, we celebrate on the same day each month that we first started dating. As we approached our 100th month anniversary, we discussed how exactly we should celebrate. On the one hand, it was a wonderful milestone. On the other, finances were tight at that moment.

We discussed over a series of days whether we should stay in and do something special at home or splurge and go out to dinner. After much handwringing, we decided to go out.

My wife crowdsourced people’s suggestions for top local restaurants, we researched, and we decided on one. It was a quite expensive, extremely well-regarded restaurant neither of us had been to before.

We were, again, very excited to be out on the town. We decided to start the evening with two glass pour wines. Mine came back and was, of course, corked. It was a tough start to the evening, but these things unfortunately do happen.

When the waiter came back, I informed him that the wine was corked and asked if he could open a fresh bottle and bring another glass. He took the glass away. I watched as he and the bartender discussed the situation for some time. Then he came back to the table.

“I talked to the bartender, and he said it’s actually not [corked]. That’s the way the wine is supposed to smell.”

I was completely stunned. “No. I actually write about wine for a living. It’s corked,” I said.

“Well, you clearly don’t like the wine. Why don’t you try something else?” the waiter suggested.

At this point, I was thinking about how big of a deal I really wanted to make this. Should I say “No. I want the wine that I asked for. This is a $12 glass pour wine for goodness sakes! Open another bottle!” Instead, I told the server to bring me something else.

My wife and I were both quite upset, and the evening was clearly ruined at this point. But we had ordered our meal. Leaving was not an option.

We sat at the table, both of us shocked. I was seething. When the meal came, we quickly ate it and left. The food was some of the best I’ve ever had in my life, but I can’t say that I experienced much enjoyment. Best of all, given the auto-gratuity at the restaurant, I paid the server $60 to insult me and upset my wife.

We decided when we got home that clearly we should have decided to stay in. Later, my wife and I both independently wrote the owner, encouraging him to better train his service staff regarding cork taint.

He replied apologetically and offered us a free meal at the restaurant. After thinking about it, we decided that we didn’t really have any interest in going back to the restaurant again, even for free. As you can imagine, we have both talked about this experience to a very large number of our friends whenever that restaurant comes up.

* * *

These are just some of the experiences that wineries using natural cork are giving to customers. They are my top 10 stories. I could write another ten or even a Top 40. These were all experiences marred by cork taint.

On the one hand, many people will say “Well, cork taint happens,” and throw up their hands. That is wrong.

Cork taint is a decision winemakers make. There are alternatives available that are guaranteed to be TCA free. Some of these alternatives have existed for decades.

Yet many winemakers don’t avail themselves to these alternatives because they want to use natural cork for one reason or another (consumers are used to it, they like the way wines age under it, etc.). So they accept defrauding a significant percentage of customers, when they know 3-6% of their corks will be contaminated by TCA. (Some deny that number is correct, but even the Cork Quality Council's studies indicate that is about right.)

This might seem overly harsh or dramatic, but it is not. Selling a product that you know to be faulted is fraud.

Imagine going to the grocery store and arriving home and finding that 5% of the food you bought was inedible due to some contaminant. You bring this to the attention of the store, and they say, “Well, this is to be expected.” It would be an outrage. Yet somehow, when it comes to cork taint, we have been told we should expect it. Worse still, we have been told to accept it. A lot of people even believe that!

That is wrong. These experiences do not need to happen. It just takes winemakers no longer ignoring the magnitude of the problem and availing themselves to solutions.

It also takes cork companies accepting responsibility for their end of this failure and not offering what they know to be a defective product. Cork companies also shouldn’t be charging wineries higher prices to “guarantee” their corks are free of TCA (trichloroanisole, the main contaminant that causes cork taint). Imagine buying something and having the company say “Would you like to pay substantially more to make sure you’re actually getting what you're paying for?”

Bottom line, after decades of foisting cork tainted wines upon consumers - truly filling cellars with them - wine lovers deserve a lot better.

Cork taint is a scourge on the wine industry. Despite great efforts to reduce or eliminate it, the issue continues.

Cork taint is caused by a contaminant, most commonly trichloroanisole, that can at low levels mute the aromas and flavors of a wine or at higher levels make them smell and taste like a moldy basement. (Read my article about the ins and outs of cork taint.)

As a consumer, there are few things more disappointing than opening a prized bottle and finding out it’s cork tainted. As a critic, I look at cork taint as an existential threat. Why?

My goal as a reviewer is to inform people about wines and influence buying decisions. If a person buys a wine that I’ve recommended to them and enjoys it, that helps me. If someone buys I wine I’ve recommended and they do not enjoy it, that hurts me.

Based on my experience over the last decade, 3-6% of the bottles I’m opening for review with natural cork closures have been cork tainted. Consumers are likely seeing a similar percentage, though they might not necessarily realize it.

This is for two reasons. First, they don’t necessarily know what they are looking for. Second, the levels are not always high enough to be detected easily. However, even at lower levels, cork taint still impacts one’s enjoyment of a wine by muting aromas and flavors.

Therein lies the problem. Consumers tasting cork tainted wines will in many cases – truly in most cases – not recognize it. They just won’t think the wine is very good.

When this happens, it means that the winery has not only damaged its reputation due to a disappointing bottle. If the consumer has purchased the wine based on my recommendation, they’ve damaged my reputation as well. I take that very seriously.

These are some of the reasons that I have written relentlessly about cork taint for over a decade, trying to raise awareness of the extent and seriousness of the problem. (See examples of why you should smell the cork when opening a bottle; why cork taint is still a problem; and other articles.) I will continue to do so until cork taint is completely eradicated from the wine industry. Eliminating TCA taint in the broader food industry appears to be a lost cause. (I’m looking at you, baby carrots.)

Today, in true Late Night with David Letterman style, I give you my Top 10 cork taint stories, numbers 10 to 6. In my next post, I will list numbers 5 to 1.

This list was highly competitive. I have had literally hundreds of cork tainted bottles over my 18 years reviewing wine. These experiences were the best of the best, or, more accurately, the worst of the worst.

Without further ado.

10. Cork tainted bottle at a dinner party

Many years back, a reader invited me to a large dinner party he was hosting. While this was not something I’d done before or since, I decided to take him up on the offer.

The evening was pleasant, with enjoyable wine, food, and people. At the end of dinner, the host got up and said that he wanted to say a few words.

He proceeded to tell us that he had a very special bottle of wine he wanted to open. It was a bottle that had been given to him by his children on a special occasion. He had been waiting for just the right moment to open it. That moment was tonight.

He walked around the table pouring the wine, regaling everyone with how much this bottle meant to him. You know what comes next.

I put my nose into the glass, and it had screaming levels of cork taint.

I started to shift uncomfortably in my seat and scanned around the table to see if anyone noticed and what the reaction was to the wine. At least at that moment, everyone was still merrily chatting away.

I started to envision a scenario where the host said “Sean, you’re the critic. What do you think of the wine?” I always explain to people, as a critic, when people ask me such questions, I answer truthfully, whatever my thoughts might be. I sat like a trapped animal looking for an escape.

The woman sitting next to me, who was a good friend of the host, was also a wine professional. I thought perhaps she could bring the matter to his attention before the situation became more awkward.

“This wine is corked,” I whispered to her. She smelled the glass and said “Oh that’s terrible!” She removed my glass and brought something else. For better or worse, no one else seemed to notice.

9. Fridge broken, cork tainted wine, and cork tainted flowers

Toward the end of 2020, the refrigerator died in my house. With the world dealing with supply chain issues, my wife and I started envisioning not having refrigeration for a series of months. Mercifully, it ended up just being a couple of weeks, and we briefly lived out of coolers and a small, borrowed fridge.