There are certain things in life, and times in life, when one should ‘come out of the closet’ and tell everyone what one really thinks. I recently made my views well known about screw cap wine bottles (the Stelvin cap versus the traditional cork), and I now feel it is time to blow wide open the issues of ‘reconditioning’ older bottles of fine wine.
It has for many years been a common practice for fine wine producers, led by the Bordeaux châteaux, to take back and recondition ullaged bottles (where the wine has dropped to a lower level in the neck of the bottle than preferable) or bottles where there are signs of a deteriorating cork - could be seepage, or cork weevil or a dry crumbling cork.
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Whilst the châteaux are careful not to offer to recork obviously bad bottles, they go through a more or less rigourous process of tasting the bottles when opened and, if ok, topping up often (but not always) with the wine from an opened bottle of the same vintage, recorking with a new cork marked with the reconditioning date, often relabelling and recapsuling, and adding a sticker giving the reconditioning date.
It is not only Bordeaux châteaux who do this, although one would believe it best to go back to source, but the most reliable of the others is Whitwhams Wines in the north of England, who have reconditioned bottles for many years. More recently, Penfolds have instigated a ‘programme’ of reconditioning or ‘clinicing’ bottles of Grange, often travelling around the globe to carry this out, and obtaining publicity for what is seen by them and others as a service to the consumer and trade.
That rather over-simplistic description of the ‘reconditioning’ or ‘clinicing’ process is what leads me to ring loud warning bells. Indeed, from many years’ experience and the good fortune of having tasted both the original bottles, untouched with good well-preserved but original corks, against the reconditioned variety, leads me to conclude that reconditioning and clinicing should be stopped. After all, the very words ‘reconditioning’ and ‘clinicing’ imply that the bottle is in some way at best ‘tired’ or at worst chronically sick!
I have never tasted a reconditioned bottle that is as good and genuine as the original in best condition. In some instances I have tasted reconditioned and cliniced bottles that are a disgrace to their label. Of course one would never really know where or when the deterioration took place – before, during or even after the ‘treatment’. But experience tells me without a shadow of doubt that this process, whilst probably well-intentioned, verges on a ‘sleight of hand’ on the less knowledgeable consumer.
So what, you may ask, do you do with bottles showing signs of deterioration? There is only one answer – drink them quickly, preferably with good friends, so if they are great bottles, enjoyment has been shared, and if they are beyond redemption you will be forgiven. To my mind, the worst trick is somehow to try and refresh these bottles, then resell them as the real thing with the producer’s imprimatur and endorsement.
Let me spell out the logic even more clearly. Firstly the bottles which become candidates for the ‘clinic’ are invariably ones showing ullage or deterioration; is the wine inside ever likely to be as good as a bottle with a well-preserved cork? No.
Secondly, the best temperature and, even more importantly, humidity and light-controlled cellars tend to yield up far fewer bottles needing reconditioning, than other less perfect storage. Some of the best bottles I have drunk are from cold damp cellars in Scotland, where wines from the 1860s and 1870s have perfect moist, supple but, on opening, slightly fragile corks, but they are fine after 130 or 140 years, and the ullage levels are also impressively high.
Thirdly, the very opening and topping up process is suspect – are the experts doing this tasting a string of mediocre bottles against one another, only rejecting the very worst? Is the topping up from the same wine or something younger, to add a bit of zip?
Lastly, and significantly, it is far easier to produce a fake reconditioned bottle. The cork is new, the labels and capsule are all new, all very easy to copy. It is very difficult to produce an imitation of a genuine 1951 Grange, or 1861 Romanée Saint Vivant.
I finish with a final anecdote from our trading experience with Uvine, the world’s first ‘stock exchange’ for great wines. Recently we inspected and offered for sale a vertical (every vintage for a run of nearly 50 years) of a famous wine. The oldest and most valuable had been reconditioned, amongst some others. We offered on behalf of the seller this set, fully and properly describing which bottles had been reconditioned. After the sale the buyer decided that the most valuable bottle had not been reconditioned well, and reneged on the sale, leaving Uvine to guarantee the transaction as stated in our terms and conditions. Uvine were left with potentially a very considerable loss, over a bottle which some ‘experts’ argued was absolutely the genuine valuable article, whilst other ‘experts’ were much less confident. Fortunately we were able to resolve this contentious problem to everyone’s satisfaction, but it has as you can see brought me right ‘off the fence’ and ‘out of the closet’ on this issue, and Uvine will rarely trade reconditioned bottles, and then only when I have personally inspected the bottles, and know well the provenance.
My advice is to try and avoid reconditioned bottles, but for those who are prepared to take the risk be lucky, make sure the price reflects the fact that they have been reconditioned, and caveat emptor.
