The problem with TBC is that it's so wildly inconsistent. Each "vintage" is made up of different "batches" of wine that comes from pretty much everyone imaginable in California. So while you may have some decent quality commercial wine (beringer or mondavi excess juice), you might also get some very good quality wine through the Bronco factory too..then again, at the prices good ol' uncle fred pays, you get a ton of central valley swill, and that also goes into the factory as they "make" each batch.
also, the company seems to skirt the 75% rule wherever and whenever possible, so you really don't know how much cab or merlot is in their "california" cab or merlot.

Just to be more precise, corked wine has nothing to do with the storage conditions of the wine. It is a flaw that comes from the presence of a chemical called TCA, and which is present at bottling. A bottle cannot develop TCA as it ages or is poorly stored- it either had it at bottling or does not. Of course storage can and often does affect a wine, which is why ensuring the provenance of the wine is essential. There are many wine shops you walk into in the winter in a cold climate that are absolutely broiling- don't buy there!

To answer the OP's question, though, I find wines that are out of balance due to too much oak or too-extracted fruit very difficult to drink. I also don't like wines that are not representative of what they purport to have in the bottle, e.g. pinot noir vinified to taste like syrah, or burgundy made to taste like Russian River Valley pinot.

Anything from Peju Winery in Napa. I did a wine tasting there with some girlfriends and it was terrible.

We quickly learned that cute exterior = awful wine.

Tonight at Wal-Mart two women were looking for wine and I overheard one say to the other: "Oooooh, look how pretty this bottle is. Let's buy this one!"

I've made several mistakes based on looks and price in the past - from thinking "it's expensive it must be good" to "cute bottle" to "that looks classy."

I still buy the occasional cute bottle, but usually get something i know will be good to accompany it (just in case).

most producers pay a lot of attention to creation of the label. It is possible to generate a label that makes the wine very difficult to sell. the merchants do not want to purchase it, unless it is a 92+ point wine(then it can have any label).

does a wine labeled "california" have to be bottled in CA?

I think not, and if not, it becomes trivial to bottle a CA wine label it CA, and not observe any of the 75% rules, or any other CA rules.

for a number of years, one of the best wines of VA was labeled "bottled in VA" and used CA juice. brings more money that way.

bottled, no. contain CA grapes, yes. that is what the "California" means on the label. that the wine contains california grapes. there is usually a second line on the back of the label specifying where the wine is bottled and/or made.

hope that clears things up.

A few years back, against my better judgement, I purchased two bottles of wine in mainland China. One was called Dynasty and the other was called Great Wall. Both alleged to be cabernets and made with French "Bourdeux wine making skills". Both were swill. I had one glass from each and promptly subjected my garbage disposal to a chug-a-lug. My garbage disposal wasn't happy; it wound up smelling foul for a week...

Hopefully, their wine making skills have improved over the past few years...although my winie (like foodie) friends over there still hold a very low opinion of those labels.

Here in Dublin soomeone bought a shiraz from a highly dubious (non wine) region - in Queensland!
You might as well say ireland, greenland, wherever, as they are proably just as cruddy wine areas.

Some shady importer is really taking advantage of the uninformed wine buyer here... Buyer beware! ;)

Though that was enough, I pulled off the cork's foil and found it was a plastic cork.

As you could imagine, it hasn't been and will not be opened! :p

BA serves/served wine from someplace in England in biz class on transatlantics.

What's wrong with plastic corks, by the way?

Plastic is a horrible long term enclosure. It is "fine enough" for wines to be consumed within a year or two. But you may not know what is under the fauxoil (fake foil) until you remove it. Screwtops are 1000% better than plastic.

first, could you provide a link for that first statement? and
second, some very, very, very high percentage of wine is consumed in what i would consider an unaged condition. My guess would be that over 99% of all wine spends less than two years in the bottle(box). Even less improves with age.

Here is what one very high end and dedicated winemaker has to say about the importance of being cork-free: http://www.willakenzie.com/about_us/cork_free.html

I used to be skeptical about the aging capability of screw-top wines, but after 5 years of experimentation I am quite convinced that screw-top is superior for all wines, even things like Grange. It is just a hard sell in restaurants ...

As for plastic corks, there are different kinds, some good and some bad. The best cost more than cork, are completely inert, and great for wine (these are used by some surprisingly high-end wines now, so the market outside of the US is accepting composite corks).

Isn't my word good enough? :p A quick google search will give you all the various articles you need, or maybe pick up an old Wine Spectator. In any event, my problem with le plastic is you don't necessarily know it may be plastic - sometimes there might be something you could let sit a few years, not because you necessarily want to really age it, but for whatever reason, it hasn't been opened. For anything 2007, I'm sure not much air has gotten in, if any. Before we know it, the 2008s will be showing up from the summer harvest of February/March.;) Plastic will be fine for those.