How to Return a Corked Bottle of Wine (and Why You Should)

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The incidence of cork taint has been variously reported to be as little as 0.7% and as much as 10%. However, for most retailers, distributors, and wineries, it often appears to be a non-issue for one simple reason. Consumers rarely return corked bottles of wine. Here I discuss what steps consumers should take when they discover a corked wine and why returning the bottle is important to help reduce the incidence of cork taint.

First let me say that when I am referring to ‘corked’ wines, I am talking exclusively about bottles affected by 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) or bottles that appear as such.

People often ask me how cork taint presents itself. TCA can affect both aromas and flavors with a fairly wide spectrum of presentations. Aromatically, wines affected by TCA often have a moldy, musty smell that may be anywhere from very prominent to extremely faint or even undetectable. I often liken it to the smell of a very old, dirty dish cloth, which a startling number of people seem to be familiar with! In some cases the fruit aromas may be muted as well.

This same musty aroma may be detectable on the palate, especially on the back end. The wine may also seem stripped of its flavor. However, sometimes the flavors may seem largely unaffected and what you noticed aromatically may not be detectable or visa versa.

The taint itself is most frequently coming directly from the cork and leeching into the wine. The aroma is therefore often quite noticeable on the cork itself, which is why some smell the cork after opening a bottle of wine (NB: Historically, people also used to inspect corks at restaurants to make sure the wine in the bottle was what it was supposed to be, and inspecting cork integrity is always a good idea).

Once you’ve identified a corked bottle of wine, what you do next depends on the circumstances.

If you bought the wine from a retailer and you still have the receipt, bring the bottle back to the retailer with unconsumed wine still in the bottle. This shouldn’t be too hard given that the vast majority of wine is consumed within twenty-four hours of purchase. Note that it is important both to bring back the bottle and the unconsumed wine because it determines who is going to pay for the corked wine as explained below.

If you bought the wine directly from a winery, you don’t have a receipt, and/or a large amount of time has passed since you purchased the wine, contact the winery directly, explain the situation, and ask for a replacement bottle. Of course, the winery may not be able to replace the wine with the exact same vintage. Many will provide the current vintage instead.

Why is it important to actually have the bottle in hand with unconsumed wine when you return a corked bottle to a retailer? First, this ensures integrity at every step of the process in returning the corked bottle. Second, it allows the proper party to shoulder the expense, which in all cases should be the winery. Here’s what happens after you return a corked bottle of wine.

Once you return the bottle, what the retailer does next is contact the distributor to get a replacement bottle, perhaps even giving the distributor the actual bottle of corked wine. The distributor then either gets a replacement bottle from the winery, in which case the winery pays for the corked wine, or, for the sake of convenience, does not, in which case the distributor pays for the corked wine.

However, if you bring an empty or almost empty bottle of wine bottle back to a retailer and say that the bottle was corked, the retailer has to pay for the corked bottle! They can’t contact the distributor without any evidence of a corked wine! Doing so could obviously lead to shenanigans (“Remember that bottle of 2005 Lafite you brought us? A customer returned an empty bottle and said it was corked. Can I have another?”)

As consumers, we rarely return corked bottles of wine for a number of reasons. We often paid for the bottle some time ago, so the money is long spent. We wanted that exact bottle of wine at that particular moment, so the moment is lost. It’s a hassle to return a bottle of wine! For some, it’s even intimidating (“You say it’s corked? Doesn’t seem like it to me!”). And of course, sometimes people don’t know the wine is corked. They just think it’s bad wine.

However, returning corked wines and asking for a replacement bottle is important because it makes all parties aware of the problem and hopefully reduces the chances of it happening again. Many things can be done to reduce or eliminate cork taint, but unless there is an obvious problem, why bother? As consumers, we are actually part of the problem by remaining silent.

So here’s my New Year’s resolution - and I encourage you to make it yours as well. I’m going to return bottles or contact wineries about each of my corked wines this year. As some will recall, last year I decided to count how many corked bottles of wine I had throughout the year as well as the overall incidence. The final tally was 45 corked bottles in 2011, 3% of wines sampled. Interestingly, to some people I spoke with, 3% seemed unacceptably high. To others, it seemed pleasantly low, and, of course, to others, it seemed just right.

What level of cork taint is acceptable is a question for another day. Suffice to say though that if consumers don't let wineries know a bottle of wine was corked, the next bottle is just as likely to be tainted as the one that came before it.