That’s right. this is a whine about a producer. Feel free to move along.
Earlier in the year I opened one of a 6-pack of wines from this producer. This bottle, the only one from that order, was terribly corked. I wrote the winery at the time and the proprietor gave me 2 options, he could refund the purchase price or add a bottle to my next order. I told him that tacking a bottle onto my next order would be fine.
The offer came out. I put in my order. I write in the note section that I had exchanged notes with the proprietor regarding a corked bottle of their 2017 and he had offered to add a bottle to this order.
A couple of weeks ago, my order shows up, no extra bottle.
I wrote to the winery, including the original exchange and asked if they were going to honor their prior offer. No response. I waited a week and wrote again, including all prior correspondence. I said that they had no obligation to replace my bottle or refund my money but I expected to at least receive a response to my query. No response. I waited another week and explained that I thought their lack of response was unprofessional and that I would no longer be patronizing any of the wineries that this individual was associated with.
End of whine. I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Was this a large operation (i.e. robert mondavi types) or smallish (Merrill / roy piper types).
also have you seen this person active elsewhere on IG, FB, here, etc?
is it possible if it’s a smallish oepration taht the person had a family emergency or something?
obviously if it was a huge operation, that’s just a bad look…
Why don’t you think they have an obligation to replace a corked bottle? I think they do.
I mean, I’m not going to court or something over it or anything, but I think they have an obligation to replace/credit it. If I bought a cell phone and it didn’t work, or bought a shirt and it had a hole in it, I think the seller should refund me the price or replace it. I don’t know why wine shouldn’t be the same.
As to the main point, it’s probably just bad management of the email accounts by the winery. Maybe the person you talked to the first time isn’t there anymore, or they’re behind on checking company email accounts. I’m not excusing that (I would be annoyed as well), but it’s probably that rather than them actually choosing not to honor the replacement. You should probably call them rather than continuing to email.
This person is active here. They have posted here since the first email was sent regarding the situation.
I do think they should replace the bottle. I do wish they would replace the bottle. How much effort am I going to put into this? About this much.
This is 2020. People don’t use phones any more. People use electronic communication. It takes about 30 seconds to respond to an email. If this person is incapable of handling that level of responsibility then I don’t want to do business with them. I’m done emailing. I’m done with this winery and all the others this individual is associated with.
It’s funny you say that, though – in 2020, email is getting almost as passe as phone calls. You should probably Tik Tok or Snapchat out your concerns to the guy.
I don’t think this is me. Especially since we use Diam. But if it is, I am not getting your emails. (And I do think that it’s proper form to replace corked bottles).
I would hope that I would not forget a thing like replacing a corked bottle, but I know it could happen.
That said, if you haven’t received any response to any emails, the proprietor may not be receiving them. If you have not PM’ed them, that seems like a logical choice, and probably will get through.
Also, while I use email it’s far from infallible, as I get about 200 emails a day and in general am trying to respond while in the middle of a myriad of other tasks(posting this while taking a short break from labeling Pinot Gris, consolidating the Fall wine club shipments we are a month and a half behind on, checking white ferments, checking in with growers, and trying to sort out alternative options to the typical Thanksgiving open house weekends we normally do…but hey, Covid).
I hope you get in contact with the producer one way or another and they solve the issue for you.
I think it’s more about OP just wanting the proprietor to reply. At this point he’d take the loss if at the very least the proprietor acknowledges the receipt of his emails
Thanks Paul, I am glad they got ahold of you.
For small producers are so many heads on the hydra these days that I have dropped the ball more times this year than I like to admit. And appreciate the patience of the WBers around those mistakes.
It sounds like you are getting resolution, so maybe my post is too little too late, but here it is anyway:
I have a team of younger engineers that work under me. They habitually have the excuse that they emailed someone and go too response. Since you so bluntly put it above, I’ll ask the question. Did you call them? Sure email is a great form of communication but if i REALLY wanted my corked bottle replaced, I’d probably call the winery rather than post to Wineberserkers. Just saying…
The proprietor contacted me by email after my last post here 11 days ago. He promised to ship me a replacement bottle without ever offering anything by way of an apology. I was told that the replacement bottle would ship overnight on 11/23. That never happened.
+1 on this “I don’t intend to negatively impact anyone’s business” Venting is fine trying to hurt someone never made sense to me. They screwed up You moved on Bravo for taking the high road
I received a BerserkerDay purchase which arguably/maybe needed to be replaced (i.e. not as clear cut as a corked bottle), due to a shipping issue. I didn’t ask for or demand a replacement, but the proprietor said he would replace it and not to worry, which was very nice. A long time passed (maybe 4+ months?). I figured he probably just forgot to do it, and given that I didn’t feel strongly in the first place that he owed me a replacement, I wasn’t going to ask again.
It was sort of an awkward in-between resolution, though, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it. Then out of the blue one day, the replacement arrived.
Hopefully this issue is resolved to Paul’s satisfaction as these types of issue are never fun to deal with. Also, given the holiday last week, the proprietor may just not have gotten to it yet, so I think waiting a bit to see and giving the proprietor the benefit of the doubt isn’t a bad thing. You always have the option to follow up/complain later
I agree with my goggled friend Blankenship here - I think it’s likely the wine will arrive in the next few weeks, and when it does, I’d be satisfied enough with that.