Printing Error

Most wineries are very particular about there packaging.  What is on the label is usually more important than what is in the bottle when it comes to consumer choice, unfortunately.  We purchase dozens of cases of wine each week.  On occasion we will get mistakes like the wrong bottles packed in a case.  I recently received a twelve bottle case from Regusci Winery in Napa.  Half of the bottles were the Merlot that I ordered while the other half was Cabernet Sauvignon.  That is a packing issue at the winery and I was able to hand sell the Cabernet at the same price of the Merlot, which was a considerable discount.

When it comes to French wines, they tend to be more careful.  There is history and prestige associated with the top wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy.  Wooden cases are favored over cardboard boxes.  You can tell the bottles are handled with kid gloves.  That is why I was really surprised to find a pair of bottles from a top Bordeaux producer with the following mistake on the labels.  The Chateau name and vintage was printed on two adjacent labels and the bottles were placed next to each other in the case.  Not a big deal, except that there are so many checks that were missed to keep this from happening.  It was a printing error that wasn’t caught at the printers.  It wasn’t caught at the labeling stage (which is probably done by a machine).  Nor was it caught when it was packaged in its wooden case.  There were probably five or six people that should have seen this but missed it.  This is not a cheap mistake either.

When these first came in, I sent this picture to friends in the Somm world and nobody had ever seen something like this.  One friend in DC had a case of labels upside down.  Others recommended I sold the pair as a magnum.  These were the last two bottles of the 05 Phelan Segur to sell from that case and they were both appreciated for what was on the inside, not the outside.