Australia: Forklift mishap destroys $1m of shiraz wine

blindbatblindbat Regular
edited July 2011 in Spurious Generalities
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14247551

More than A$1m ($1.07m; £664,000) of wine has been destroyed in a forklift accident in Australia.

The 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove shiraz sells for A$185 a bottle ($199; £122), the AFP news agency said.

Winemaker Sparky Marquis told reporters he was "gut-wrenched" that 462 cases of wine had been smashed while being loaded for export to the United States.

"When they opened up the container they said it was like a murder scene," he said. "But it smelled phenomenal."
'Massive loss'

Mr Marquis told the AAP news agency the shipment represented one-third of his McLaren Vale winery's annual production.

"It's a massive loss. We're going through all of the 462 cases at the moment just to see what we can save out of it."

The wine was, however, fully insured.

Agence France-Presse said Kerry Logistics, which was handling the shipment, moves more than 20,000 containers a year.

Spokesman Brett McCarthur said the company had never had a malfunction of that type before.

"It was very hard to make that call to Sparky," he said.

Comments

  • MorningsideMorningside Regular
    edited July 2011
    At least it smelled phenomenal...
  • CaptainFalconCaptainFalcon Regular
    edited July 2011
    At least the banks finally lose some fucking money to insurance
  • SlartibartfastSlartibartfast Global Moderator -__-
    edited July 2011
    He fool likely cheapened out on the shipping company....

    because charging ~$200 for a bottle of wine wasn't making him enough money
  • RemadERemadE Global Moderator
    edited July 2011
    Got a feeling this was an insurance job...
  • edited July 2011
    I have about 1000 hours of forklift time, it's not a hard thing to do once you get the hang of it, and as jobs go, it's pretty fun. It is very easy to get overconfident and make stupid mistakes though. It sounds like it was in a shipping container, I wonder what the poor shmuck did to fuck it up? The crash would have been glorious, and I would have loved to have watched the river of overpriced wine heading to the gutter.

    Anyway, unless it came with a free hooker, I don't think I would ever pay that much for wine. Wine snobs piss me off. "delicate hints of peach and maple, with a solid finish, and an aftertaste of spider farts and fresh biscuits", bullcrap, drink it, like it or don't, shut up.

    C/O
    "don't ask me how I know what a spider fart tastes like, it was just one of those parties"
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