Would You Drink "Hot" Wine?

WINE TALK
21

Only if it were 1986 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, because it would be an offer I couldn’t refuse.

22

Apparently Bordeaux drinkers have no integrity either. Is this a French thing? [scratch.gif] [wink.gif]

23

No one can ever question your consistency Mike. Bravo.

24

Vous êtes trop aimable ! flirtysmile

25

There are different kinds of HEAT. The 2 to 1 vote on this topic along with the comments, says that not everyone fully appreciates how their actions or tolerance puts themselves at great risk and, steers the industry in the wrong direction. One of my roles is to conduct and create ethics trainings for building management in NYC & LI. In class I get expressions of confusion - about what is actually wrong, apathy - thinking it’s a petty issue and, concern for the health of their industry. We deconstruct the anatomy of the under-the-table deal but, before I address INTEGRITY, I always start with SCARED STRAIGHT.

I am compelled to offer this question to wine lovers. Are you prepared to check that person for a wire? With money ready to be spent they will be back, it is not a onetime happenstance, some will eventually get caught, and to save their own necks they will agree to wear a wire and, to turn over their books of record. You’re status of being a transactional entry and/or being caught at the wrong time on a HOT MIC, puts you in a forced position to have to save your own neck.

26

I read your post 3 times and still can’t figure out what point you are trying to make.

George

27

No industry is immune to the consequences of unethical behavior that crosses beyond the line, as it is construed in the comments here. I described what has happened in other industries when that happens. Life is good, why play with fire?

28

I think Margie wants to know if she can watch you and Hot Mike do something.

Or, she wants you to join her and Hot Mike.

A viniferous three way of some sort?

29

Interesting interpretation. [wow.gif] [snort.gif]

George

30

Gabby Johnson is right!

31

Looks like Gabby Johnson, et al, are right.

32

Ditto - Sounds to me like a little bit of an overreaction. A wire? Really? It’s a freakin’ bottle of wine, not back door funds to Iraq. If you follow this board, Mark (who this post is about) is a bit of a whore who spends an inordinate amount of time looking for other people’s mistakes. He isn’t doing anything illegal, just a but unethical. As with anything else, this will come back to bite him in the ass one day. You run into all kinds in this biz - and most of the time you just have to shrug your shoulders and mumble “WTF?”

33

{original comment deleted, as I hadn’t known about the thread this thread is referencing when I made my comment}

34

I think it’s a reference to Tony Soprano and Christopher jacking cases of '86 Lalande from The Vipers.

35

I would enjoy both the wine and watching the holier-than-thou puffing themselves up.

In any given room, I’m pretty sure the guy with the $40 Montrachet is not carrying the worst karma, and I’m still hanging out with the guy who is (or maybe I’m him).

36

I’ve seen two threads now related to Mark’s acquisition, so let me deal with the first and then this one.

  1. There seem to be a lot of problems here with the idea that Mark took advantage of a retailer’s error on giving a much lower price for a more expensive wine. This is not an ethics issue. It is a business and insurance issue. Having spoken to friends who work at supermarkets and the LCBO – and remember that wine counts as food and beverage, albeit more expensive – I have been told that such human error happens all the time and is covered by the store’s insurance.

At least Mark gave the store some money. He didn’t outright shoplift from the store nor did he deliberately defraud them. You’d be stunned at how many items don’t get scanned at all at a cash. The employee who made the error will not and should not be reprimanded unless a pattern of such “errors” is shown and an investigation later shows they are partnering together for some kind of inside job. That happens more often than you think.

  1. This particular thread presumes an outright stolen wine and whether one would partake of it. Reminds me of the time I worked at a summer resort as a kid in the 80’s and two of the staff sold an obviously hot high-end portable stereo system to the parents of one of the other staff members openly at a staff party.

The mother distinctly said to her husband, “Sorry guys, I don’t buy hot items” and then proceeded to have a fascinating 40 minute conversation with her husband and the two guys selling that resulted in some haggling and the slow breakdown of ethics and morals until it was perfectly acceptable to buy it and the husband ended up paying them for it.

This board is a pretty ethical stand up bunch of guys and gals all tied together by a common love of life, spirits, wine and food. I love that, that’s why I enjoy participating. Unfortunately, that’s also exactly the kind of person who can be talked into drinking hot wine, buying hot stereos, giving electroshocks to people who fake screaming in pain because the authoritative sociologist conducting the experiment told them to, and who do nothing to help Kitty Genovese when she’s being stabbed to death in broad daylight in plain view of everyone and then tell the police “I thought somebody else was going to help.”

What I’m saying is, don’t be so presumptuous in claiming moral outrage and stating confidently that you wouldn’t engage in what you consider unethical behavior. You’d be surprised at how easy it is for decent people to find themselves engaged in it.

As for my own personal answers, at the risk of incurring the further wrath of everyone I have to be honest and answer as follows:

  1. I have come across the first situation twice myself and the only difference was that the mistake was realized after the transaction, not during the moment of. In my “greatest treasures found” thread a couple of years ago, I mentioned paying $40 CDN for a boxed Vidal icewine only to return home and find a much more expensive and different type of icewine from a completely different maker inside the box worth at least half as much more. I have no idea how this happened and it’s happened twice in two different LCBO stores. I celebrated this, did not return the item, and drank the icewine both times.

But what if the error was discovered within the store itself? I’m gonna be completely honest here – I would not inform the store of their own mistake. I realize this comes across as very unethical to some people. Why? Because of the time a friend and somm did in fact do this out in Calgary and was told with a snotty attitude “We didn’t make a mistake. We can’t sell orange wine.” The wine in question was 01 Yquem and she got it for $40 a bottle. This ethical thing works on both ends.

  1. I purchased icewine on sale directly from a large corporate winery and placed the items in my provided wine bag as I paid for them. After I paid, the cashier pulled another set of items in my bag probably not realizing I had already just done so. I actually had forgotten myself even though this was just a minute ago and didn’t realize what had happened until I got on the tour bus and realized I had twice the amount of bottles I had paid for. As well as considering the ethics, I also had to consider that making the bus turn around and then delaying everyone from getting home on a cold wintery night might not have gone over well. So I did nothing and kept the bottles though I did mention what had happened to one of the tour organizers.

However, I later started to question the ethics of having done this and on our next visit to the winery, I explained to the retail manager what had happened and why I didn’t return on the spot and offered to pay for the bottles which had been by now consumed. He simply smiled, thanked me for telling him, and said forget about it. I have always had great relations with the winery since.

37

Tran, great post. Something very interesting is on the horizon that I think is going to blow a lot of peoples’ minds. Stay tuned.

38

Tran - your posts makes very little sense. It is not surprising that Mark thinks it is great.
It is a question of ethics, which deals with shades of grey. Insurance deals with 1s and 0s and is not, in general, shades of grey.
You answer “why?” to your icewine question with an example that does not address why.
Mark, if the liquor store belonged to a friend, or even better, your Dad, would you have scammed them for the Monty? Or would you have pointed out the mis-pricing?
It is a very long post, however, and you should be congratulated for that.

39

who.cares. who knows how many people on this board got deals they didn’t deserve on wine.