Shop Talk: Rotten Fish

My boss has a saying whenever a wine rep comes to him saying "I have a brilliant wine to show you", he asks the rep when the last time they ever heard a fishmonger advertising rotten fish? He has a point. In this trade you often hear people 'bigging up' a terrible wine, because they are trying to sell it. I don't have a problem with that really, they are just doing their job and if you have a portfolio with a lot of great wine, and a few duds, then I don't mind having rubbish pushed at me. After all, the wine speaks for itself and if it is rubbish, no amount of marketing bullshit is going to make it better or get it onto the shelf. These wines are not so much rotten fish as a the wine equivalent of tinned tuna compared to fresh.

Occasionally though, we get someone trying to sell rotten fish, and that happened today. Two clarets that were "great deals", and they were anything but. One of them smelled of a ripe compost heap, so I am giving it the benefit of the doubt and putting that down to being off, but the other was so past it, I wondered why he was trying to sell it at all. I have been guilty of selling wine that is past it's best before, but I like to think that every time I have done so I've warned the person it might not be at it's peak anymore, and they have generally been pleasant enough. This wasn't though, all secondary flavours and very dusty green peppers. It was totally shot and would never be acceptable. Today I experienced rotten fish...