You ever get free wine?

I got free wine twice in the past few weeks. First I went to the store to pick up two bottles of Champagne and they also gave me three bottles of Puligny Montrachet that I had ordered and paid for 18 months ago. Then I got a delivery in my office on Friday of someone else’s allocation and when I asked him how much I owed him for my share, he said, “Nothing, you already paid for it.”

I love getting free wine.

I asked Gary Vaynerchuk to set up a few tastings for me in California once. He did. After I tasted at Ridge, they presented me with a bottle of 2004 Lytton Springs signed by John Olney.

Twice. A free bottle of 1988 Caymus SS Cab from the winery for attending what was suppose to be a tasting and vineyard tour but rain had made the vineyard too muddy to do the tour. Consolation prize?

The second was a bottle of “Bitch” Australian Grenache from The Wine Club. I had bought a bottle as a joke for a friend and two years later received a call to come pick up the bottle I had ordered and paid for. I bought a bottle in stock and told the store I already had the wine. They insisted that I had special ordered it and had failed to pick it up. So I picked it up on my next visit.

Not typically, but I remember a visit to Chalone (not the easiest place to get to) when they were about to close and the person in the tasting room gave me a bottle to try for the night. Went back the next day for a tour and tasting. Left a most excellent impression!

Worked a day at a winery during harvest and got a free assorted case of wine.

Never received free wine but have been given a discount at my LWS if I would buy out the remaining inventory of a given wine.

I have worked winery festival events and helped bottle wine a few times and received wine as compensation but do not include that as “free” as I was trading labor for wine. BTW I jump at every chance I get to do this as the value of the wine (and often food) is great compensation for doing something I love.

I’ve had a few free things shipped to me intentionally, and one time not so intentionally.

An online merchant once let me just keep an incorrect order that they sent because it was too much of a pain to send it back (and there wasn’t a lot of money involved). Partly their bad because what I thought I was getting was a Brunello for an amazing price, I specifically asked them if it was correct, they said yes, and it turned out to be a Rosso.

Also, the owner of a nice little French cafe once gave me a bottle of Pouilly Fume just because I said I liked it.

One of my local shops has given me free bottles a few times to try, anywhere from $25-$70 each.

A friend started making his own wine in WA state and has given me samples a few times. Not just a hobby but the starting of a business.

Went to Sonoma in the City tasting in Balboa Park a few years ago. Lots of great wineries with many high end bottles as most came to this after World of Pinot in Shell Beach and bright what they had left. Kosta Browne was there and poured many single vineyard wines. At the end was talking to the guy and he offered us a bottle to take to dinner. Left with a 2013 Kosta Browne Kanzler vineyard pinot

I think y’all are missing the subtext of Jay’s initial post. Or maybe I’m just reading it wrong.

He didn’t include his mailing address.

No, you are reading it right. They are all missing the subtext by a long shot.

Yes.

This has not happened to me yet. But I fear that I’m reaching the point where it could happen in 2019.

I once got a four pack shipment from WTSO in which the contents were not a wine I had ordered. The packing slip was for the wine they should have shipped. When I notified them, they were still able to ship the wine I had ordered, and when I asked them about shipping the incorrect bottles back, they said “Don’t bother”. Free wine.

Previously a shipment from WTSO had arrived frozen due to a blizzard that had trapped the truck overnight in sub-zero temperatures. WTSO replaced those wines too. I thawed the wine, pushing the corks back in the bottle as soon as there was room. WTSO didn’t want those bottles shipped back either. I drank the wine over a couple of years. Every bottle was completely sound, and actually would have benefited from a bit more age.

Well, we’re not lawyers, so not reading the fine print is standard for us.

No, but as CRS sets in I have had wine that I bought, paid for, and forgot, delivered to me. What do I win for being the idiot who explains the joke?

We can get the joke and still tell our own story.
I’ve been on the other side of the transaction as well. I traded an allocated wine for a different wine my friend picked up at the winery which was the only place it was sold. He gave me the wines at the time we arranged the trade, and many months later when my allocation was shipped and I brought the wines to him, he said I had already paid him for the wines I got. I had to convince him he was owed the wines. Then again, maybe he was right and I gave away wine.