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sangers · 06-06-2003, 11:25 AM,

I have just got off the phone from the customer complaints department for Winerite Ltd. I have a bottle of Frascati Superiore which is unopened and has a beetle floating in it.
As you can imagine, when the third bottle of wine arrives on the dinner table with a beetle floating in it my guests and I were quite horrified. Yet Winerite tell me that "It happens every now and then"! "Would you like a replacement bottle or a refund?".
I don't know much about this sort of thing, can anyone help? They are going to send me packaging to return the bottle to reclaim my replacement.
Is this the best I can hope for? Or should I hold out for more? Is it true that this "happens every now and then" or do they have a problem where the wine is bottled?

Innkeeper · 06-06-2003, 12:09 PM,

Hi Sangers and welcome to the Wine Board. My dispostion is such that I would simply settle for a replacement, sans beetle. Would not say that "It happens all the time." That comment may have been a little disingenuous.

Kcwhippet · 06-06-2003, 12:13 PM,

It doesn't happen every now and then in wineries that practive any sort of cleanliness. However, the shop did what virtually all shops will do - offer a replacement or refund. There's really not much more you can expect beyond that. With the millions of bottles of wine produced every year and in over 35 years, your experience is the first I've ever heard like that.

~~Bucko~~ · 06-06-2003, 12:25 PM,

I had a bottle of Sancerre with a spider floating in it. I gave it to a friend on a special occasion. I've never had another bottle before or since that had foreign substances in it.

Botafogo · 06-06-2003, 12:59 PM,

Don't forget, wine is an agricultural product, not bicycle parts. Things happen.

Once, when I was the beverage director at Antoine's in New Orleans, we opened a case of Sancerre (hmmmmm, is there a conspiracy in the Loire?) and found TWO bottles that had museum exhibition quality examples of REALLY large, multi-hued and quite beautiful stinkbugs in them.

In that case I chalked it up to a disgruntled employee at a giant negociant as it could NOT have been accidental. But, no one got hurt and we got a BIG chortle our of chilling one and pulling it out to serve it to the distributor when he came looking for a check!

Question, did you not see it when you took it our of the case to put in the fridge? In any case, a replacememt bottle is the answer, not litigating everyone from here to Rome about it.

Roberto

girlperson1 · 06-07-2003, 06:41 PM,

Ah...but those lucky bugs. Best way to go if you're a bug and gonna go!!

wondersofwine · 06-09-2003, 08:05 AM,

LOL. I'm reminded of the college frat guy at a "woodsie" who exclaimed "There's a fly in my beer!" His frat brother responded, "That's okay, Dave, it's not Friday." (Dave was Catholic and at that time Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays.)

Innkeeper · 06-09-2003, 08:50 AM,

A couple of years ago we were staying at a fairly posh B&B in Woodstock, VT (we were affording it with the aid of a 2-4-1 coupon). At breakfast, I poured some maple syrup on my pancakes, and a bee came of the cruet with the syrup. This came out of maple syrup, not honey. Anyhow, I pushed him (didn't look like a queen) to the side of my dish and continued with the breakfast.

Well, Ms Innkeeperess came flitting by, and exclaimed, What Is That!!! I calmly explained it was a bee that came with my syrup, and that he didn't comsume too much of it, and it was no big deal. She became apoplectic. She also immediately concluded that it had to have come out of the syrup bottle, not considering that it may have been lurking in her curet. Under the circumstances I didn't even want to bring up the possibility.

A week or so later a package arrived from Vermont. In it, in a beautiful container, was 500 mls of fabulous maple syrup from the poor guy who had supplied the inn with syrup. I still think the bee was in the cruet.

Thomas · 06-09-2003, 10:18 AM,

When I lived in Tehran we bought raw honey that seemed always to have a bee or two in the bottle--dead of course, but likely happy just before the final moment!

barnesy · 06-09-2003, 07:05 PM,

I'm reminded of the joke...

An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman walk into a pub. Each of them orders a beer and each of them has a fly floating in it. The Englishman pushes the beer back and orders another one. The Scotsman picks the fly out, flings it over his shoulder and continues to drink. The Irishman grabs the fly out and shouts at it "Spit it out, Damn it."

Barnesy

wondersofwine · 06-11-2003, 08:16 AM,

LOL!

Brom · 06-18-2003, 03:13 PM,

"the third bottle of wine arrives on the dinner table with a beetle floating in it my guests and I were quite horrified."

Horrified? By an insect preserved in a sealed bottle of alcohol? You are overstating the situation, right? Particularly after the first two bottles have been done with, if the third came with a beetle, I think I would be in stitches, not horrified. unless you had no fourth bottle, in which case horrors indeed.

Nothing more than refund or replacement? What else would you want and why do you think something other than replacement refund should be appropriate? Would you feel the same way about a corked bottle?

billiebobbette · 06-21-2003, 05:38 PM,

The only excitement with beetles at my house is when my cats catch the occasional june-bug and torment it...then I toss it into the turtle tank....and continue reading Rita Mae Brown's series of murder mysteries solved by her cat...while I drink some sort of red wine and eat large amounts of cheese. Has anyone tried Beringer white merlot? It's pink. At first I really enjoyed it, then it reminded me of watered-down Richard's Wild Irish Rose. That's rot-gut that cost about $4.97 a gallon. Not that I'd know...LOL!

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