I would like to thank ThunderThighs for the great customer service. The situation is totally resolved for me. Thanks so much!

We opened the 1st of 6 bottles last night to accompany our 1st fresh halibut of the season. Spectacular grilled fish and horrible wine, not exactly the combination I had planned. The wine had certainly had plenty of rest after shipment. Either the winemaker bottled bad wine hoping it would somehow improve or it has been badly mishandled since bottling. Has anyone had a good bottle?

I emailed service@woot.com today and I trust they will do the right thing.

Been following this thread for a while now. Since I only got three bottles I really don't care to open any of them in the near future, perhaps after a year or so at best. However the possibility of three bad ones has me thinking I may have to pop one sooner than later.

Wondering how long WW would accept them being properly cellered and still consider compensation for a bad bottle/lot?

Perhaps TT could check for us and post back here, rather than have all of us contacting support...

so for the many comments from people that a 'cloudy' wine means its bad. Sorry folks, thats not even remotely true. Some people on here parading as wine experts that you could drive semi trucks through the holes in what they know.

I didn't buy this Woot, but I have tasted these wines before. Doubtful if some have ever had a Burgundian high acid, not over ripe fruit bomb, Pinot Noir. But then again, I question why wine geek wines should be sold on Woot.

But for the record irregardless of Vintner, once you move out of wine made by massive producers to small artisans, and even more so you leave your confines of the US, unfiltered (aka cloudy or not clear) is less of anomaly.

A wine geek will be familiar with the 'phrase unfiltered wines have no soul.'
Whether something maybe happened to your wine or not, some of the reasons people are dog piling on as flaws, are complete & utter bullS**t.

yozhin wrote:What the winemaker is trying to say here is total b...t. The wine is bad, practically a vinegar. I got it delivered yesterday and opened a bottle today to taste, but even before opening I noticed that it
was too light of color in the bottle and very cloudy. and, of course, it's impossible to drink that... liquid.

I will request refund immediately.

so I have seen this wine poured before fyi Pinot Noir is SUPPOSED TO be a light colored wine - thats a varietal characteristic. When its not its been doctored with, manipulated, or blended. Whether or not this wine had flaws like VA (the portended vinegar) using light color and cloudiness as canaries pointing out flaws, couldn't be further from the truth, unless you are seeking Two Buck Chuck.

I opened a bottle last night and had the same experience as many others. I am no expert but when the wine looked like fruit punch in the glass I knew there was going to be a problem.

2008 pinot noir.

Not good.

Just opened first of three bottles. Wine was acidic, dull, and what I believe oxidized (a slight brown hue).

A bad bottle, maybe, but I think this wine is beyond its time. Shame on me for ordering a 4 year old pinot which is very delicate and the body of this wine hasn't held this time frame.

3baddogs wrote:I opened a bottle last night and had the same experience as many others. I am no expert but when the wine looked like fruit punch in the glass I knew there was going to be a problem.

Ummm.....when it didn't look like Petite Syrah you knew there was going to be a problem?

catfishhunters99 wrote:Ummm.....when it didn't look like Petite Syrah you knew there was going to be a problem?

exactly. welcome to REAL Pinot Noir. Its SUPPOSED to be light in color.

Opened the first bottle last night, about 10 days after receipt. Hadn't read any of the comments. Both wife and I noticed the pronounced sour and vinegary taste, in addition to the cloudiness. It had been run through the aerator. Stored the remaining half bottle overnight (we use a pump preserver). Had another glass this afternoon. Same. Decided it must have been bad, opened another, ran it through the aerator. Exactly the same taste. Will decant the rest of the bottle right now, but somehow I don't expect it to improve. Too bad, was in for six bottles.

I just want to preface this by saying I am no wine expert, don't pretend to be one, I just like to pick up great wine for cheap on wine.woot. I got 3 bottles of the Inspiration Pinot and placed them in my wine fridge on 3/20/12. I then read all the comments, listened to the winemaker's voicemail and took a bottle out on 3/24/12 and let it stand upright. I noticed it had collected some sediment along the side it had been laying on. It stood upright until 4/1/12 when I opened the bottle. I noticed a more uniform color, with all the sediment sitting in the bottom. I took out another bottle from the fridge, which was on it's side, and noticed a lot of sediment had collected, much more than before, and let it stand upright to open in a week from now. I then decanted the wine, did not aerate the wine, using a flashlight to make sure none of the sediment made it out of the bottle. I left about a glass worth in the bottle to try later.

I have to emphasize once more, I am no wine guru, but the decanted wine tasted ok to me. It was a bit more tangy than other Pinots I've had, but have never had a Burgundy Pinot to compare it to, nor an unfiltered one. I enjoyed it and look forward to the other two bottles. I tried what was left in the bottle, slowly pouring it into a glass to leave the major sediment out. Now that was sour. I tried to link a picture with the two glasses (decanted vs left over in bottle). Can you guess which was which?

http://i1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg507/lbchomer/090610d3.jpg

(note: only saw this thread after opening and evaluating)

Opened a bottle of this tonight. Bottles had been resting undisturbed for some time since arrival and at a nice low temperature, since I'm in nearby Seattle.

Uncorked the first one and it was actually pressurized and/or slightly carbonated. The aroma of vinegar that rushed out was eye-watering.

Immediately grabbed a second one and had *much* better results. No vinegar, just a healthy dose of normal acid, tons of very new oak, and a distinct Carneros terroir. Needs a few years and is very unique, but is not spoiled.

Will contact support about the first bottle and post back about the 3rd in 2014 or so.

Hello all~
I bought 2 sets(6 bottles) from this offering.
I'd consider myself as a generous/forgiving taster. Received my package on Mar. 21, opened first bottle on April 2 (14 days after) and on April 11(23 days after). Both times I let the bottles settle about good 3-4 hours. Nose: gentle alcohol punch with good earthy(mushroom like) and light fruit. Taste: Noticeable pungent sourness with acceptable amount of acidity. Yet, there’s bright berry like fruit alive in it. I found this highly unusual so I called my good friend/wine snob/sore loser in tennis match/reputable sommelier. He acknowledged that there’s good fruit and balance HOWEVER the sourness and unpleasantness taste comes from either filtration method or contamination at the bottling process….

Just wanted to share….

Good night!

Mine has now been resting for 21 days, so last night I went into the cellar and carefully removed one bottle from the rack. The wine appears to be bright and clear, with a good deal of fine sediment collected on the side. I carefully rotated the bottle to the upright position and watched the sediment flow towards the bottom. All in all, very consistent with an unfined/unfiltered Pinot Noir.
I will let it rest until the weekend of the 21st-22nd and then pull the cork and report on what is in the bottle.

I opened a bottle tonight for some guests and we all immediately noticed that the wine was cloudy and smelled like vinegar.
I was able to drink a few sips, but that is about it.

Afterwards I came to look at woot to see what other people were experiencing and saw the long list of complaints.

What is the process for return with wine.woot? I have never had a bad wine from woot before.

Kris

As promised, I opened a bottle last night. The bottle had been upright for a week,and I carefully decanted until the sediment was starting to move past the shoulder. An ounce or two remained, and was clouded with grey fine sediment. The wine in decanter was bright burgundy. The flavors were dominated by strawberry and cherry, with an acidic finish. This wine is very, very good to outstanding Pinot Noir. I rated it 89 on CT, the only thing keeping it from a 90 was a lack of complex evolving over the evening

While there may indeed be bottles with issues out there, every complaint I have read in this thread is consistent with mixing the sediment into the wine. I do think there is some shared fault here -- Inspiration could have done a much better job of alerting consumers of the sediment, and consumers could have allowed the wine to settle after shipping, letting the sediment fall out and be much more obvious.

Bottom line is I loved this wine, and am glad I wooted it.

mandoo500 wrote:Hello all~
I bought 2 sets(6 bottles) from this offering.
I'd consider myself as a generous/forgiving taster. Received my package on Mar. 21, opened first bottle on April 2 (14 days after) and on April 11(23 days after). Both times I let the bottles settle about good 3-4 hours. Nose: gentle alcohol punch with good earthy(mushroom like) and light fruit. Taste: Noticeable pungent sourness with acceptable amount of acidity. Yet, there’s bright berry like fruit alive in it. I found this highly unusual so I called my good friend/wine snob/sore loser in tennis match/reputable sommelier. He acknowledged that there’s good fruit and balance HOWEVER the sourness and unpleasantness taste comes from either filtration method or contamination at the bottling process….

Just wanted to share…

Good night!

After opening my second bottle tonight I would totally agree with this post. For the record I opened the bottle tonight thinking the first was shocked but after tasting tonight I quickly turned to this thread to review. I also think catfishhunter99 post has some validity. But even so I can not imagine the sourness/vinegar tastes was the intention of the vinyard, even considering this was unfiltered wine. I plan to better decant and filter the wine as the night progresses and hope to update later.

Opened a bottle of this a couple of weeks ago. Horrible. Made sangria with it that weekend so it wasn't a total loss.

But I am willing to treat these a little more gingerly, as some of you have done with success. Is this basically the process?

1. Let the bottles rest (not a problem at this point)
2. Set upright for a week or so to allow sediment to settle.
3. Open and decant for an hour or more making sure you get no or very little sediment in the decanter.

I guess it wasn't just me. I thought the taste was bit odd, more like the wine had gone sour. I thought it was just that bottle, or me imagining things.

Wish I had read this thread before opening my first bottle. Poured into a decanter without regard for not disturbing the sediment. It was this style decanter if you care
http://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-192572/Menu-Wine-Br
I will say that is some fine, easily disturbed sediment. None, and I mean no trace, remained in the bottle (which does get completely inverted, but many other unfiltered wines leave something). But I'm almost positive it is sediment, and not some bacterial contamination as others have said, because I went to my other two gently cellared bottles and sure enough there was a generous layer of sediment on the bottom. Other wine woot offers have warned the buyer it is unfiltered, don't remember one here and it would have been nice.
As for taste, I would agree it is tart. Vinegar? I wouldn't go that far. And do not get any nose of vinegar as others have suggested. And this is my "clouded" impressions. But I am a fan of tart over sweet in most things, so I may be biased. Or maybe I waited for the bottle shock to pass which was the main culprit and not the sediment? Or shipping from Carneros to San Francisco is an hour drive and didn't harm the wine?
Now I'm actually curious to compare to my undisturbed bottles. Or maybe let the sediment settle in the decanter? But doesn't sound like that has been effective for other people.
If nothing else I will look at my bottles in the future to look for sediment before decanting.

So, I opened a bottle last night. Popped and poured, and it was amazing. The nose was huge fromthe beginning, it had vibrant acidity, and biig sweet ad sour cherry fruits with hints of all sorts of other redness .Rounder and fuller than Kent Rasmussen's estate Pinot, and less sour, bigger and much more accessible than Saintsbury, it has good acidity (from the higher TA I think), and really really good.

Minerally too, really mouth-zinging. My favourite California PN so far. Not a patch on a great Burgundy, but you can drink it a lot sooner,and it will balance big fare too, without being dark, cola and overripe like many CA pinots.

If you got bad bottles and did smell VA, or vinegary, then perhaps your bottles were cooked in transit, or had corkage issues. but my first bottle was outstanding. Or.. maybe for one or two of you used to big, toasty, sweet dark Central Coast PNS, you've never had a PN with any acidity in it, and - like eating lemons - you just have to get used to it and THEN you see what all the fuss is about with not-flabby wines!

catfishhunters99 wrote:Ummm.....when it didn't look like Petite Syrah you knew there was going to be a problem?

I just opened up my bottle tonight, and it surely disappointed. The wine was cloudy and very sour. I would definitely think that this wine has gone bad. I originally thought it was only one of my bottle, but I saw all three bottle has the same condensation on the bottom of the bottle.

chenchr wrote:I just opened up my bottle tonight, and it surely disappointed. The wine was cloudy and very sour. I would definitely think that this wine has gone bad. I originally thought it was only one of my bottle, but I saw all three bottle has the same condensation on the bottom of the bottle.

Sorry about that. I see you've already emailed in. We'll get you taken care of.

chenchr wrote:I just opened up my bottle tonight, and it surely disappointed. The wine was cloudy and very sour. I would definitely think that this wine has gone bad. I originally thought it was only one of my bottle, but I saw all three bottle has the same condensation on the bottom of the bottle.

Did you read the rest of this thread? This problem can easily be avoided by standing the bottle upright for several days prior to opening and then slowly pouring the wine off into a decanter leaving the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. This is typical for an unfined and unfiltered bottle of wine.

I don't think this pinot will be offered here again since many of the purchasers didn't heed the winemakers advice on how to properly handle the bottle and turned in claims to W.W. for what they observed to be a bad bottle of wine. Read RichardHod's & Catfishhunter's reviews a few posts above yours for a real review of the wine when the bottle is properly handled.

6/29/2012: Because the wine is unfined and unfiltered I stood it up for a week prior to opening. I could see the sediment neatly sitting at the bottom and we were ready to go. The nose upon first opening is of fresh cut strawberries and cherries. As it opened up I got a little smoke as well. The palate is very tart and very zippy and the flavors match the nose.

At first it seemed like a very light Pinot but as I looked at it under bright lights it was very concentrated at its core which makes sense since it really packs a punch. This is very well made wine but not in a style that I really enjoyed. This is on the lighter side of Cali pinots but the flavors are very strong. Nothing subtle here.

Solid if not excellent wine Jon.

My three bottles arrived on 21 March 2012. I placed them in my concrete cellar in a rack on their sides. They lay there until 29 Sep 2012 (~6 mos). Temps never above 55 F.

I wasand am aware of the unfiltered nature of the wine and that it contained particulates.

I removed the first bottle and allowed to stand upright following the advice from the winemaker received in an email on 9 Mar 2012 regarding my question about transporting to a dinner party:

"If there’s a place in your car where the wine can travel without being tossed and turned, I would definitely travel with the bottle standing up. If you can anchor an old wine box, that should work.

Once at the dinner – carefully open and decant off the lees into a decanter. If you have never practiced this, it’s very easy, you can look through the neck of the bottle and once you see the stream change and look cloudy, you will know to stop. I have poured this wine at a bunch of events and decanted my bottles quite quickly. If you decant in single pour, you shouldn’t lose more than a few swallows."

Stood uprigth for 20-30 min. I carefully decanted the wine, allowing about 100 ml or so to remain. I stopped pouring when the first thin threads of sediment started towards the neck. The sediemnt remained in the bottle and was discarded.

The wine was light colored, red with a slightly brown hue. Not cloudy, but dull. The wine smelled of mixed alcohols and organic solvents. The taste was plain sour - not vinegar, not acidic (as in citric or other fruit acid), not alcoholic, just sour. Not really any fruit. No cherries or other fruit flavors. Thin and sour tasting.

I ran it through an aeroator - not really any change. I left it sit in the decanter for an hour or two - no real change. I left it overnight. The next evening it was, if anything, less pleasant. Nothing had settled to the bottom of the decanter and the wine was not particularly cloudy, so this confirmed that the decanting job was correctly executed.

I have a doctorate in chemistry, so I have spent my share of time in the lab decanting liquids.

Last night I tried the other two bottles - one was slightly better than the other, but still unacceptable. Both followed the first down the drain.

Nothing was obviously amiss with the corks on any of the bottles. All were tight, not cracked, uniformly wet.

From reading this thread, I conclude that some of the bottles in this Woot lot were bad for some reason. I let my bottles rest for six months and gently sit upright for awhile before decanting. Three out of three of my bottles were bad. Several have reported nice bottles. So whatever went amiss was not uniform.

liverman wrote:My three bottles arrived on 21 March 2012. I placed them in my concrete cellar in a rack on their sides. They lay there until 29 Sep 2012 (~6 mos). Temps never above 55 F.

I wasand am aware of the unfiltered nature of the wine and that it contained particulates.

I removed the first bottle and allowed to stand upright following the advice from the winemaker received in an email on 9 Mar 2012 regarding my question about transporting to a dinner party:

"If there’s a place in your car where the wine can travel without being tossed and turned, I would definitely travel with the bottle standing up. If you can anchor an old wine box, that should work.

Once at the dinner – carefully open and decant off the lees into a decanter. If you have never practiced this, it’s very easy, you can look through the neck of the bottle and once you see the stream change and look cloudy, you will know to stop. I have poured this wine at a bunch of events and decanted my bottles quite quickly. If you decant in single pour, you shouldn’t lose more than a few swallows."

Stood uprigth for 20-30 min. I carefully decanted the wine, allowing about 100 ml or so to remain. I stopped pouring when the first thin threads of sediment started towards the neck. The sediemnt remained in the bottle and was discarded.

The wine was light colored, red with a slightly brown hue. Not cloudy, but dull. The wine smelled of mixed alcohols and organic solvents. The taste was plain sour - not vinegar, not acidic (as in citric or other fruit acid), not alcoholic, just sour. Not really any fruit. No cherries or other fruit flavors. Thin and sour tasting.

I ran it through an aeroator - not really any change. I left it sit in the decanter for an hour or two - no real change. I left it overnight. The next evening it was, if anything, less pleasant. Nothing had settled to the bottom of the decanter and the wine was not particularly cloudy, so this confirmed that the decanting job was correctly executed.

I have a doctorate in chemistry, so I have spent my share of time in the lab decanting liquids.

Last night I tried the other two bottles - one was slightly better than the other, but still unacceptable. Both followed the first down the drain.

Nothing was obviously amiss with the corks on any of the bottles. All were tight, not cracked, uniformly wet.

From reading this thread, I conclude that some of the bottles in this Woot lot were bad for some reason. I let my bottles rest for six months and gently sit upright for awhile before decanting. Three out of three of my bottles were bad. Several have reported nice bottles. So whatever went amiss was not uniform.

I think I have run into the same problem. I just opened my first bottle last night at a BYOB cooking class. I was so excited to try this and unfortunately was so disappointed. It tasted like very sour cherry cough syrup. It certainly did not match any of the tasting notes I had read and was not even close to a Pinot I've ever had, cheap or expensive. I knew all about the sediment and that was not the issue at all, just the taste. Jon had informed us all about how to handle it. I loved their Zin I purchased a while back and I'm thinking and hoping something was just wrong with my bottle. I stored it properly, so I'm not sure what went wrong. I am a Pinot fan, have had many from California, New Zealand and actual Burgundy Pinot. It just didn't even taste like wine.

ThunderThighs wrote:Sorry for the untasty wine. If you haven't already done so, contact Customer Service.

To contact customer service, click on Support at the top of every page to go to the support form or email support@woot.com. Include your woot username and order number for faster service. They will try to answer in one to two business days.

I actually emailed Jon last night because he is going to be doing a tasting in the Chicago area a few weeks from now that I plan on attending. I explained to him what I encountered even though the wine had been opened about an hour prior to drinking and had been poured clear of the sediment as he instructed. I was hoping he would be tasting the same wine on that night. He did reply to me more insight, and I plan on opening another bottle prior to the tasting to see if I get the same result. If so, I'm going to bring some for him to review and find out if that is what was intended and it is just my taste that is the issue. It may be just a learning curve for me.

Thanks for your response TT. I appreciate the good customer service here.

My three bottles went to three different people. Mine was great but a different style Pinot from what I typically consume. My coworkers was great according to him and my friend thought his had actually gone bad and put it down the drain. He said it was vinegary. So there is probably a mix of truly bad bottles and mishandled bottles responsible for the negative reviews. I don't think Jon will ever offer this particular wine here again.

cortot20 wrote:My three bottles went to three different people. Mine was great but a different style Pinot from what I typically consume. My coworkers was great according to him and my friend thought his had actually gone bad and put it down the drain. He said it was vinegary. So there is probably a mix of truly bad bottles and mishandled bottles responsible for the negative reviews. I don't think Jon will ever offer this particular wine here again.

We emailed up and back and it sounds like this was an oddity style for him to create. I wanted to try another Pinot at the tasting to compare, but he said his current releases are dramatically different that the 2008 so it will be apples to oranges. I still plan on going and trying out his other wines.