The (almost) Case of The Bouchard Montrachet

[A_Yambor]

@Mark J. Boldizsar

@Peter Tryba

I hate to pile on, so I will offer a bit of insight instead. This was the most poorly handled presell of Bouchard in the past 20 years. I would not be surprised if the store were billed for Bourgogne and shipped Montrachet.

Peter, thank you for not piling on to the witch hunt here. FWIW, these bottles were just sitting on a shelf next to other bottles around the $20-$80 mark. The price was clearly marked on a sign above the bottles, so it wasn’t like I took a single $400 bottle to the register and it was rung up incorrectly. This was also a place that was not in the business of selling much of anything above $100/btl. All this leads me to believe the store itself was shipped a case of this on accident after paying for a far less expensive wine.

Mark,

This is not a witch hunt. A mistake happened somewhere along the way, a person/business lost a lot of money and possibly more. You took full advantage and are the proud beneficiary of others’ misfortune in this case.

[Mike_Cohen]

@Mark J. Boldizsar

@Peter Tryba

I hate to pile on, so I will offer a bit of insight instead. This was the most poorly handled presell of Bouchard in the past 20 years. I would not be surprised if the store were billed for Bourgogne and shipped Montrachet.

Peter, thank you for not piling on to the witch hunt here. FWIW, these bottles were just sitting on a shelf next to other bottles around the $20-$80 mark. The price was clearly marked on a sign above the bottles, so it wasn’t like I took a single $400 bottle to the register and it was rung up incorrectly. This was also a place that was not in the business of selling much of anything above $100/btl. All this leads me to believe the store itself was shipped a case of this on accident after paying for a far less expensive wine.

My gut feeling is that this is more likely the case than the store making a pricing mistake. They probably ordered whatever $40 white burg from Bouchard and were shipped the Monty instead.

[CFu]

@Ralph Earle

@Charlie Fu

out of curiosity. Let’s say Mark told them about the price issue. The sales clerk goes to check with a manager. The manager says “no it’s right”. He buys it up. Would it be okay then?

Every bit as OK as if he had taken them from your accidentally unlocked cellar and left $400 behind.

Not sure how that analogy applies.

[Dav1dZ]

@Mike Cohen

@Mark J. Boldizsar

@Peter Tryba

I hate to pile on, so I will offer a bit of insight instead. This was the most poorly handled presell of Bouchard in the past 20 years. I would not be surprised if the store were billed for Bourgogne and shipped Montrachet.

Peter, thank you for not piling on to the witch hunt here. FWIW, these bottles were just sitting on a shelf next to other bottles around the $20-$80 mark. The price was clearly marked on a sign above the bottles, so it wasn’t like I took a single $400 bottle to the register and it was rung up incorrectly. This was also a place that was not in the business of selling much of anything above $100/btl. All this leads me to believe the store itself was shipped a case of this on accident after paying for a far less expensive wine.

My gut feeling is that this is more likely the case than the store making a pricing mistake. They probably ordered whatever $40 white burg from Bouchard and were shipped the Monty instead.

And this is why you ask a manager before you buy - because there’s always a chance they sell it to you anyways, if the mistake isn’t theirs. If you didn’t feel like you could double check the pricing with the manager, that’s a good litmus test that you’ve de facto stolen the wine.

[Peter_Hirsch]

@Mark J. Boldizsar

@Peter Tryba

I hate to pile on, so I will offer a bit of insight instead. This was the most poorly handled presell of Bouchard in the past 20 years. I would not be surprised if the store were billed for Bourgogne and shipped Montrachet.

Peter, thank you for not piling on to the witch hunt here.

A somewhat bothersome response. You posted this thread about the amazing ‘Steal’ you got on some '12 Bouchard. You posted the story about how you got this great deal. You were, of course, looking for either some congratulatory confirmation of this great deal and/or hoping for a little envy from others on this great ‘steal’. You got something different; most posters feel that this was not handled correctly and it’s not that much different from seeing a $100 bill dropped on the sidewalk and sliding your foot over it. Where’s the witch hunt? You had one view, the vast majority of others had a different view. When people differ from you, they’re not always wrong and it’s not always a witch hunt. Sometimes they’re right.

[Peter_Hirsch]

@Charlie Fu

@Ralph Earle

@Charlie Fu

out of curiosity. Let’s say Mark told them about the price issue. The sales clerk goes to check with a manager. The manager says “no it’s right”. He buys it up. Would it be okay then?

Every bit as OK as if he had taken them from your accidentally unlocked cellar and left $400 behind.

Not sure how that analogy applies.

I agree with Charlie. This analogy does not work. Now if Charlie had a guy standing in front of his wine cellar, and when people came by this guy would sell some of the wines, and if this guy sold some '99 DRC ‘La Tache’ for say $500 per bottle, then yes, it would be the same.

[George_Hejna]

@Mark J. Boldizsar

All this leads me to believe the store itself was shipped a case of this on accident after paying for a far less expensive wine.

You should contact the store to make sure.

George

[JIMCOH]

Personally, I would have told them that the price was wrong. That being said, I feel pretty confident that they had no idea what the wine was, never ordered this specific wine, and would have responded at every level that it was the right price. That has been my experience when I inform a clerk when he scanned a bottle and told me the price and my response was that it was far less than half of what retail should be. I went to the manager, got a belligerent and definite “That is the right price,” and my moral dilemma disappeared. I bought all they had. Came back a week later and bought a few more cases.

In the OP’s case, if anyone in the store knew what they had, the wine would have been in one of their private cellars. These guys don’t sound like they would approved an invoice in the correct amount. So I guess they had no clue what they had and very likely paid little for it. Someone was going to buy it at this price. Should we be deriding the person that did buy it?

[M_Kelly]

Without checking to ensure it was not a mistake, yes we should be deriding.

[Chris_Freemott]

My favorite part of this is he bought 10 bottles. That means someone(s) will be drinking 2 bottles of Monty @$40 per and have no clue. I can just see one of my wife’s peers from her book club dropping an ice cube into the glass now. “Ohh, this is really good Jen…”

[Roberto_Rogness]

So, if the STORE in fact stole it from the evil distributor but made their normal mark up, it’s all good?

Would it be different if it was Neal Rosenthal or Kermit rather than Southern?

[Chris_Freemott]

Can’t wait for the distributor to reconcile their books and call the store - “Hey, remember those Bouchard’s we dropped off. Yeah, need those back. Bill in warehousing made an error. When can we get them?”

“Oh…sold em. Okay, where’s the check for $7,000.00 then?”

Love to know how this plays out legally…

[Roberto_Rogness]

Distributor wouldn’t have a case if the wine was listed correctly on the invoice yet priced wrong. Bank error…you lose!

[Michael_S_Monie]

Mr. Boldizsar has made it known here on multiple occasions that he has a knack for finding top end wine at bargain basement prices. And while it would be easy to attribute his zealousness in both doing so and making it publicly known to his youth, there have been threads asking what the best wine deals one has encountered that were participated in with equal zeal. It would have been responsible on his part if he had sensed that there was a knowledgable person on the premise to point out the error. But in all likelihood what was in the the computer was gospel, and if he had left without making the purchase, someone else would have done so.

[Rick_Dalia]

Someone in the supply chain will eventually look into where this case of wine ended up, and perhaps they may stumble upon this thread. A missing case of Montrachet won’t go unnoticed by the distributor, importer, or whoever made this mistake. Mark, you’ve publicly advertised your role in this error. Regardless if it was right or wrong to buy these bottles, you’ve put yourself in a vulnerable position. If this is a retailer you shop frequently you may lose the privilege to ever walk in their doors again. There is surely a paper trail that’ll be looked at, and now you’ve created an online public forum trail as well. Your best bet is to return these ASAP to the retailer.

[Roberto_Rogness]

I know of a case where a high volume restaurant was pouring BV Cabernet by the glass as their house wine. They ordered a pallet as usual one time and got shipped BV Georges de Latour Private Reserve instead. They poured it by the glass at the normal price till it was gone.

[Roberto_Rogness]

Rick, the store should punish a customer who spends $$$ because they and/or their distributor mismarked something and a customer took them at their word re the price?

Under California law they would be REQUIRED to sell it to him at that price if they had any signage or advertising with that price EVEN IF they had the correct price elsewhere…

[Henry_Kiichli]

@Rick Dalia

Someone in the supply chain will eventually look into where this case of wine ended up, and perhaps they may stumble upon this thread. A missing case of Montrachet won’t go unnoticed by the distributor, importer, or whoever made this mistake. Mark, you’ve publicly advertised your role in this error. Regardless if it was right or wrong to buy these bottles, you’ve put yourself in a vulnerable position. If this is a retailer you shop frequently you may lose the privilege to ever walk in their doors again. There is surely a paper trail that’ll be looked at, and now you’ve created an online public forum trail as well. Your best bet is to return these ASAP to the retailer.

Do you mean he is in legal hot water? Regardless of the morality of the whole thing, I don’t understand how he could be in legal trouble for buying a product from a store for the price they were asking.

[Roberto_Rogness]

He is in no legal danger whatsoever and the store is REQUIRED to sell it to him at the price marked.

AB 1721 (Koretz-D) Prices: overcharges

Prohibits any person, at the time of sale of a commodity, from charging, as defined, an amount greater than the price, or computing an amount greater than a true extension of the price per unit, that is then advertised, posted, marked, displayed, or quoted for that commodity.

[Rick_Dalia]

@Henry Kiichli

@Rick Dalia

Someone in the supply chain will eventually look into where this case of wine ended up, and perhaps they may stumble upon this thread. A missing case of Montrachet won’t go unnoticed by the distributor, importer, or whoever made this mistake. Mark, you’ve publicly advertised your role in this error. Regardless if it was right or wrong to buy these bottles, you’ve put yourself in a vulnerable position. If this is a retailer you shop frequently you may lose the privilege to ever walk in their doors again. There is surely a paper trail that’ll be looked at, and now you’ve created an online public forum trail as well. Your best bet is to return these ASAP to the retailer.

Do you mean he is in legal hot water? Regardless of the morality of the whole thing, I don’t understand how he could be in legal trouble for buying a product from a store for the price they were asking.

I don’t know. I’m not an attorney. My only point is, he’s done something that could come back to bite him in the ass (legally or socially) and advertised it in a public forum. Not a smart move, in my opinion.