Decanter.com recently published an article about a woman who has decided to sue a winery. She claims that there was a dead frog in the wine bottle that fell into her glass when the wine was poured.

It’s when reading something like this that I’m glad I have visited numerous wineries, over 550 in four years. Many of these visits have included winery tours. We’ve viewed the large wineries where the wine bottles are washed, filled, corked and labeled by machine. How would a frog enter a wine bottle under those circumstances? We’ve also visited the small wineries where the bottling is done by hand. The winemaker or designated staff member fills the bottle adds the cork and label by hand. In this case it’s a hands on operation where the individual is with the bottle of wine. How would a frog enter the bottle accidentally?

Such a circumstance would hurt the reputation of any winery and therefore it seems highly unlikely that anyone would purposely add anything unwarranted to a wine bottle.

If the woman’s lawsuit is proven to be legitimate I hope she is compensated with a just amount, however if this is a scam and hurts the reputation of the winery I hope that she needs to repay for the losses to the winery.

However as The Wine Curmudgeon wrote in his blog, “Which brings the Wine Curmudgeon to quote Shakespeare (since this happened in Britain) from Henry VI, Part 2: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”’

How do you feel about this incident?

Cheers! Kathy