Vinsent’s ads tout that they bring their wine in via refrigerated containers, “reefers,” yet without notice on Friday shipped me champagne via ground, estimated to take 5 days—and it will be near 100 degrees here in California. I know others with the same shipping notice, hence starting this thread . . . who else is having their wines baked?
I’ll chime in with a different story: I ordered a case of 2008 Comtes as well, and after several months of not responding to my emails, they told me “I should have received the wine already”, and that they had no more 2008 Comtes available. They offered the 2007 rose as a substitute.
I accepted, and they shipped the wine without prior notice or confirmation. Thankfully this was in cooler months, and the one bottle I’ve tried so far seemed fine.
But to hear now that they DO have the 2008 makes me pretty pissed off. I guess I should be grateful that I’m not dealing with this shipping nightmare, though. Needless to say I haven’t done business with them since, and have no intention of doing so in the future.
Keeping my fingers crossed that everyone in the current 2008 boat has their situations resolved without much more hassle.
My storage company moved since I ordered. Vinsent has no US phone number that I can find and it appears to be located in Tel Aviv. Amazing that they ship during extreme weather conditions, with no outreach, on a Friday afternoon before they turn off the lights for the weekend.
I’m done doing business with faceless online/app companies that do stuff like this. Sometimes it’s worth it to pay more for wines at brick and mortar shops.
But that’s not to say that traditional retailers don’t make stupid shipping decisions too!
It boils down to trusting your retailers and having personal relationships with them. I hate hate hate the no-response game and emailing into the abyss.
FedEx delivered the wine, no signature, left the box in the sun with ambient temps in the 90’s. I was next door at my neighbor’s house for a birthday party and thankfully saw the drop-off so I was able to bring the box inside immediately. The bottles were still cool to the touch, so I am not concerned about them. I guess I laid down with a dog and thankfully did not get fleas, but I don’t plan on laying with that dog again.
Mark,
We will look into asap — but we do ship with refrigerated shipping and with insulated shipping materials.
If you want us to try and hold until the Fall we can.
Cheers,
Noah
Support Team | Vinsent
I asked that my wine be held until the weather cools.
So I inspected the bottles last night and noticed that the back label is very sparse in terms of information. I have seen 4 variations of the back label for the '08 including the Kobrand version, a UK version, a Germany version and this one. Does this mean this bottle was made for the French market? Also no indication of who the importer was.
I received my shipping notification on Friday that it had shipped and was scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday. FedEx first attempted delivery was early on Saturady morning around 9:00. I was in the shower and missed the delivery attempt. FedEx didn’t even leave a notice on my door that an attempt was made. I only know because my wife mentioned the FedEx truck just pulled away and I saw my tracking online that an attempt was made but no one answered the door.
It’s been very hot in my area, over 90 degrees the last 3 days. I’m anxiously awaiting a delivery tomorrow and hope the bottle is somewhat cool to the touch. Vinsent has been historically difficult to deal with and has very long lag time between an email to them and their response back, sometimes a response several weeks later or none at all. I’m dreading potentially trying to contact them if the bottle appears to possibly be cooked.
With regular still wine, you can sometimes tell if a bottle was cooked or frozen in transit based on if the cork is pushed out. Is there any way to tell if champagne is cooked in transit?
not early on, I believe, but color may change down the road. I just can’t believe they sent so many orders out without notice in early summer when they tout their refrigerated shipping.