I bought a 1999 Brovia Barolo Villero from a very well known, highly reputable wine store, from whom I am a regular and pretty well-recognized customer, back on release. The wine still has a prominent sticker with the name of the retailer and their barcode and all on it. I opened it tonight in advance of a nice tasting dinner event, and the wine is corked (once again, Italian wines have the highest incidence of this by a hundred miles - what the hell is it with TCA and Italy?).
I’ve never been diligent about returning corked wines, other than at a restaurant off the list, but I decided to take this over to them in person. They quickly confirmed that it was corked, and sent me to the counter for a credit. But when I went to the counter, the people seemed to be confused about it, almost as though they’d never seen this issue before, and they looked on their computer to see if there was a record of my purchase, and there wasn’t because this was probably 12+ years ago. They said their policy is not to take returns of wines purchased more than six months ago because their distributors won’t take them back - I politely told them that this wine is not corked because of its age, and their customers don’t buy premium Barolo to drink in the next six months. They agreed, but they just weren’t sure what to do, and the whole experience was rather lengthy and very awkward.
They are going to check with someone who wasn’t there and check with their distributor and get back to me. So pending what the outcome is, I don’t want to give them any negative press, but in the meantime, I just want to confirm with the board here that I am in the right to expect a credit, current vintage replacement, or something. Or tell me if I’m off base and shouldn’t expect anything. I just want some help with what position to take when I hear back next, if I do.
While some people write off corked wines as a risk you assume when you buy/collect wine, I only think it’s true when you cellar wine. If it was a recent purchase I’d definitely expect restitution.
If it’s an older bottle, I’d ask but wouldn’t expect anything. In Texas (when I worked retail) it was technically against the law to return alcohol more than 30 days after purchase. It wasn’t enforced much (if at all) but we’d assume a bit of risk and offer credit or a replacement.
If it’s true that a distributor won’t offer replacement after a certain amount of time, it’s up to you whether you think it’s asking too much for a retailer to replace a very high end wine. While it hurts to run into a corked $300 bottle, it might hurt the shop more to replace it than it would for you to eat the cost. Most wine shop owners don’t drink as well as their customers because they can’t afford it and replacing a $500 Grand Cru Burg when the distributor won’t take it back doesn’t help.
Edit: Also, if the wine was acquired outside of the typical distribution channel (such as winery direct, private collector, restaurant liquidation, etc) there is almost no way for the shop to recoup the costs of accepting a return of a tainted wine. A certain discount percentage may be given to allow for damaged bottles in these deals but it still looks like a loss of income at the bottom line.
I usually don’t bother with corked bottles but just recently opened a bottle of Champagne that cost me $300 and so I figured that I would check. Bought it at Binnys in Chicago in 2008 - they had to double check with corporate but they called me a couple days later and gave me a store credit for the full amount. Their initial reaction was the same about 6 months - crazy and quite frankly stupid if someone is selling expensive collectibles. By the way, I’d be willing to bet that Binnys given its clout in the Chicago market will be made whole by the importer/distributor. What I did like is that when I went to a wine manager and mentioned that I had a corked bottle, they immediately sent me to the cashier to get a credit without much question - cashier then immediately began to initiate the credit but was stymied by the computer based on the age of the purchase.
Hopefully they will do the right thing by you and give you a credit. These types of returns should be built into the business models for the distributors and importers (according to my wife, the distributors where she worked years ago always had a budget for problems and “samples” and could always make it up to an account and did quite often - more so because of other problems and breakage but corked fits as well). Sure, it might not be made up in the same wine and vintage but there is always something to give to an account to make up for an issue.
I also think that a store credit is a good compromise if they otherwise cannot do a refund in cash…
The way I handle this is pretty much in line with store policy, a current vintage that the distributor can replace. (Just did this yesterday with a Berthollier Chignin, and the replacement bottle was much better than what I imagined from how the corked bottle showed.) Nothing wrong with asking though!
I’m not very TCA sensitive (although had a bummer of a bottle a few weeks ago) and I feel this means that one group of consumers subsidizes another implicitly if comebacks are allowed. But I guess at the same time, if there was no feedback loop, the winery would never do anything about corkiness, or tainted cellars.
It’s a mess for collectors who age their wines, and move around, or deal with stores that have gone out of business.
Do distributors know which estates have higher incidence of returns? Do they push back on the producers when they are seeing a disproportionate share of bad bottle allowances getting consumed by one estate?
This is one concern where restaurants certainly ‘earn’ their markup on older bottles.
It sounds like you buy a lot of wine from this store. If they are looking up your purchase records in their system they should be able to see how much wine you buy.
The store should consider “the cost of doing business” & who is assuming that cost. If they eat the bottle & give you a credit, then the cost of doing business yields them years of a happy customer making future purchases. If they assume that the cost of doing business falls to you and you end up with more flawed bottles, they may see your business eventually move away. I think they are crazy not to give you a credit, but that’s just me.
If you know someone at the store, I would pull them aside & informally and gently remind them about how you buy a lot of wine & are just looking for a store credit. Especially if that person is a manager or owner.
I’m definitely not expecting them to source a 99 for me, but I had thought a recent vintage or a store credit would be appropriate. I’m not looking for any kind of windfall here, just something reasonable.
But as indicated in my original post, I’m open to hearing opinions on what, if anything, is reasonable in this circumstance.
I never return corked bottles, as it’s generally many years after purchase and I don’t consider it worth the hassle.
… however we really should contact the retailer and/or producer. Without that feedback they’re not getting accurate information on corked bottles and the pressure to eradicate TCA isn’t strong enough.
Given a screwcap sealed or cork sealed wine, I’d take the screwcap version every time, but that choice is so rare I can only recall one instance I’ve been able to make it.
It sounds like you are a good customer, so I suspect both sides will decide its reasonable to proffer up a recent year in exchange. Maybe it won’t be from the same producer or vineyard etc. But hopefully its from the same supply chain source, so that they can try to jam the cost back that way, and hopefully flow it back all the way to winery.
On the other hand, if they say, go stuff, even if nicely, I’m not sure that I’d disagree with them either. Absent a system that can track every purchase (and who knows if one has sourced bottles from multiple vendors if that precise bottle came from the precise retailer) over all time, I don’t how fair it would be for the other side to take back anything/everything. We’ve all observed human nature, and some people would/could be highly abusive of this*. And that would drive costs up for everyone. (I personally was delighted when REI ended their unlimited, no holds barred return policy. I read too many Fat Wallet stories of people being jackasses, implicitly being subsidized by the good citizen patrons of a wonderful store.)
what would stop a budding young Rudy Kurniawani from guzzling up said delicious aged wine, and then pouring in his necrotic vinegar, adding a splash of TCA from a wine smells tasting kit, and returning it to the trusting, good hearted retailer ? Sure that’s extreme, and cynical, but I’d rather not subsidize that.
PS: All that being said, I can’t think of a feedback loop that clearly gets this externality / cost back to where it should be resolved - the winery. If Italy has a systemic problem (I don’t know, not knowledgeable about that) maybe consumer demand is the only way to get them to address it. How do people feel about screw tops for Italian top end wines?
Last bottle I returned like this, the store owner asked me genuinely if I’d like another bottle of the same. It made me do a double-take because why in the world would I want something else? He knows me fairly well, I buy a fair amount of wine there and this was my first return, and I’d already asked via email if the distributor would replace the bottle for him. It must be a conditioned response to people being abusive.
I agree with Nolan and others that unlike a restaurant, I don’t think returning old corked wines is normally built into a small specialty store’s pricing.
This isn’t a case of a person abusing it taking advantage of a store. This is a story of a regular customer who has a visible purchase history in their system bringing back a bottle which should tip them off on how long he’s been shopping there if he has a bottle with their sticker & barcode which predates their system.
Any business craves customers like this. It is completely baffling to me why they would make him wait for someone to talk to a distributor. Crediting him back his $75 or whatever he paid for it back then should be no sweat if he’s spent thousands in wine since 2003 or whenever he bought the bottle.
Agree with Anthony - and as Dan Gordon already mentioned, unless Chris is dealing with a very small “boutique”-type retail establishment with no ability to go back to a distributor for credit, this is just a supply-chain cost that shouldn’t cause anyone a great deal of heartburn.
As Anthony just said, Chris has described himself as a regular customer of this store - the customer service response here should be a literal no-brainer. And Arv, while I guess there might be some unscrupulous types that try to game this system, I can assure you that the consumer bears the overwhelming amount of the cost of corked or otherwise defective wines - most people don’t bother to go back for a credit/exchange, a lot of people are so insensitive or otherwise uninformed about corked wines that they open one and just assume the wine was crappy, and even the folks who are “motivated” to follow-up on this stuff have practical “roadblocks” placed in their paths just due to regular life events. Someone mentioned Binny’s - I lived in Chicago for a decade and bought hundreds of bottles of wine from Binny’s, Sam’s and the Wine Discount Center. I now live on the East Coast, so there is no way any of those retailers will ever hear from me again regarding a corked purchase, and in our mobile society, that kind of thing happens all the time.
I think you’re due a refund at the minimum. Who cares what the distributor says. Good stores stand behind their product. WL has always taken back corked bottles…no matter when I bought them. So do the owner of the small store I pour wine at 2x/month. It’s the best way to maintain the trust of the customer.
For my earlier post, I didn’t mean to sound like an apologist or a retailer rights advocate, but people here are quick to yell “of course you should get a refund!” but it’s really not that simple.
Yes, any good retailer that knows your name (or even your face) will replace the bottle 99% of the time.
Luckily this industry is very collegial…most of the time.
The Industry is collegial to be sure, but the only reason you would get any credit for a 15-yo corked bottle is because they want your business, not because of fairness or obligation. What guarantees do they have that you stored it properly? Or even that it was corked and not just a crappy and misinformed purchase on your part? The Really Good Wine Store is endangered as it is, especially with the unpredictability of tastes, the declining respect for 100-pt scores and the often questionable resale/auction market. You assume the risk for crappy bottles when you buy, caveat emptor. To expect your money back for a flawed bottle is borderline ridiculous given the known risks of flaws. You dont ask a casino for your money back when you lose at blackjack, do you?
What guarantees do they have that you stored it properly? Or even that it was corked and not just a crappy and misinformed purchase on your part?
Storage has nothing to do with whether it’s corked or not. Or the age of the wine. And they can tell if it was corked if you send them the cork.
I would think that the Berserkerday winery would replace the bottle. If you can help them out with a pic of the cork, that would probably be useful.
As long as people will use cork which they know is a possible point of failure, they should be willing to replace the failures.
And old bottles, no matter how old, should be the responsibility of the winery. That may not always be practical, but it’s the winery that put out a faulty product and they should be on the hook in the end. Most retailers probably won’t bother claiming from their distributor, and they in turn most likely won’t bother sending it back up to the winery, but that’s where it should go. And of course, they should send it back to their cork suppliers.
Economically, it’s more prudent to eat the cost at some point. But that’s why we have the problem.
Noah, what does age/storage have to do with a corked wine?
The wine was corked when it was bottled, because the seal was flawed. If Chris would have opened it at purchase, if might have been undetectable. If he opened it after 5 years, maybe it was mildly corked. At this juncture, it’s hideously corked.
The only relevant point in that whole timeline is that the cork was always faulty - Chris may have stored the wine in his 72 degree living room for all we know, but the cork was still flawed.