Corked or Cooked or Just Plain Bad?

[Stealthman]

The final chapter. Arrived at Caymus this afternoon for a tasting and thankfully they were pouring the SS, while shrouded in tannins this will be a wonderful wine after a good several years in the cellar. My hats off to them for pouring this wine complimentary. However, after spending $500 in their sales office, carefully checking my bottles, and politely waiting for their other customers to leave so as not to bring up little unfortunate production details in front of the paying crowd, I would have expected them to be a little more interested in problems customers have found in their wine. The first gentleman I spoke with was interested and referred me to a young woman, who's name, unfortunately I don't recall, who's only interest was in telling me Caymus's refund policy on defective product and getting me out of there. She was quite insistant that this must have been a problem in the distribution chain and was probably the result of excessive heat which is rediculous when one looks at the cork, which I ended up not offering to her as she was not interested in this situation. Sorry I just said screw her. I guess she thought I was looking for free wine which was also rediculous as I had already made my purchase and put it away in the car before I even mentioned the bad bottle. It is very sad what the Napa Valley is coming too. I had another somewhat unpleasant experience with Opus last year, that really left a sour taste in my mouth as well. I used to buy a bottle or two a year, plus a half case or so of Overture from them, last year they double billed a credit card of mine that took weeks and weeks to straiten out (ended up they double billed EVERYONE who bought at the winery that day), anywho, I ended up going over there to get some resolution on the whole affair. While waiting for them to make a copy of my credit card statement I was left in the tasting room and asked if I'd like to PURCHASE a tasting while I waited for them to fix their mess. Maybe it's just me, but I thought that was tacky as hell for such an 'esteemed' organization. I actually had a good day overall though, thank god for BV and a little Heitz Inky PortO!