Worst wines you've had?

Well, I just a had rather spendy zero dosage champagne that was so unbalanced and tart that we ended up pouring 1/2 of it into our cooking wine container in the freezer. A 2012 Savart Champagne Expression Nature. A shame.

#metoo

Retsina bought on a whim (childhood spent reading Roald Dahl bubbling up there). Utterly disgusting and vile; perhaps needing to be paired with olives as the book suggests

I wonder if anyone has tried adding their own simple syrup to balance under-dosed champagne

Have had a ton of bad, insipid, or sugary sweet industrial plonk at weddimgs or events primarily. Too many to remember and many were dumped and forgotten.

The worst wines that I expected to be good were the clos st jean cdp from the mid 2000’s- just awful raisiny hot wines to my taste. And the 98 Cantemerle- green, weedy, overly herbal.

A few years ago,we had a brut nature that was a bit too tart. We added a little bit of sugar as a test. Honestly, it helped a little, but wasnt great.

Interesting. We tried it on release at a Berserker OL, since it was much discussed and controversial then. Then, to me, it was a solid bottom shelf grocery store wine that would be fairly priced around $12 (boring ripe fruit, propped up with oak superficiality). Parker’s review describes a wine that to him should rate about 90 pts., but he states how well IT WILL age, due to what’s on the label. Sounds like his label bias didn’t pan out.

Retsina – tastes like PineSol.

Most of the posted complaints were based on stylistic objections.
I just had one of the foulest wines I’ve ever had. Bichi Listan (Mission) Guadalupe Vlly/Baja/MX. This is a “natural” winemaker who’s gaining a lot of traction with that crowd. I tried it last night when I got it home. Lovely aromatics but a bit too “natty” on the palate for me. Tried it again a bit ago and the mousey/hantavirus character made it one of the foulest wines I’ve ever put in my mouth. It left a taste in my mouth that even water could not douse. Susan took a taste and immediately dumped it down the sink. First time she’s ever done that. Dreadful stuff.
Before that, the worst was a LaClarine PetiteManseng. Another darling of the natural wine crowd. Very same hantavirus character plus a screeching acidity as well. A few months later, I took my last remaining btl to show Paul (their NM distributor) how bad a wine it was. Turned out this btl was pretty decent, with only a slight natty character.
Tom

Well, Poppy. Some are distinctly PineSol/ turpentine very resins. But there are a few that have toned-down resins that are actually kinda refreshing. But resin is not what most people want in their wine.
Tom

Meiomi Pinot Noir was awful. No varietal character whatsoever, it tasted like chewing tobacco.

Do you mean SWEET chewing tobacco. Meiomi is terrible stuff!!!

I’m sure whatever they served us in my WSET class was the cheap stuff, but I’m confident I never want to try any of that again!

As a retailer, we are subjected to numerous “outstanding” wines we need to taste that will be a hit with our customers. I can’t remember which one was the worst let alone the name and varietal.

Unsuitable is far too kind. A Pennsylvania Marechal Foch was easily the worst wine I have ever had. A wine that literally tasted of feces, or as someone colorfully put it, a shitstorm in the mouth. There were some fine wines served after that but I could not rid myself of the taste of the Foch. Utterly disgusting.

Speaking of hybrids - every Norton (grape, not the producer) wine I’ve ever tried tasted like prunes. Every dry Scuppernong/Muscadine tasted of burned rubber doll.

I’m a huge fan of Ed Norton. In fact, when I was a youngster, I wanted to work in the sewers of NYC like Ed!! [snort.gif]
I’ve had some decent Nortons over the yrs, mostly the Horton Norton (always liked how saying that just sorta tripped off your tongue.
And one from Crysalis that was pretty good.
Norton tends to make a rather rough/coarse/rustic wine that doesn’t appeal to many serious wine drinkers.
Tom

Agreed. I’d buy a “Horton Norton” for the name alone - and with a name like that, I’d expect perfection!

Is any caymus drinkable now?

Lack of response = answer

Sad…

I thought it was the Blue Slide, but my memory is hazy (probably as a result of repression of the horror it produced). Didn’t Manuel nail it blind?

Actually I did. But admittedly tangentially. Were you at the table? I said I haven’t had a wine this vile since a Martinelli Jackass Hill Zin, which this resembles. And then it turns out …