Galt Wine Cellars

I am running out of room in my wine cellar (a prefabricated wine room) and am thinking about buying a wine cabinett for additional storage. Has anyone dealt with Galt Wine Cellars? Has anyone purchased a wine storage unit from Wine Cellar Impressions - they market under a variety of names. Thanks for help.

Who is John Galt?

Howard - I am working with Mike of Galt right now. I purchased an Impressions cellar and it’s very nice but there have been some issues (production delays and more importantly, shipping damage). Mike has done his best to be helpful but to be honest the handling of the whole situation (by the selling merchant and shipper) has been less than satisfying. Happy to share the gory details if they are helpful but my summary evaluation is “mixed experience”

Years ago I was considering buying from them. I did some research and found some positive consumer testimonials - which turned out to have been written by Galt’s owner under fake names. The email he sent me when I asked him about this oddity was less than cordial, and I didn’t patronize them.

IMHO, run. Their web site sends up all kinds of red flags. I recall old threads on another BB that also sent up mental alerts to me, but it’s been a while since the Galt name was brought up.

FYI, a google search showed that Galt apparently filed bankruptcy in 2008, and the last post to the ‘forum’ at galtwine.com shows the last psit in Sept 2005. Proceed with caution.

Any good experiences with people at other places? I hear about so many bad experiences. My wine room is from California Wine Cellars, which used specially made Breezaire units and was difficult to deal with when I needed to replace this cooling unit. Others have had lots of problems with Vinotemp. Etc., Etc.

My observation of traffic on the boards has been that Vinotheque appears to come out on top for positive comments.

I have a Vinotemp that has served me well - though a year or so into ownership it had a major rack collapse. I was able to substitute a different kind of rack from Vinotemp, and all was well. When I wrote about this on my site, someone from Galt contacted me, abraded me for dealing with Vinotemp, and told me what I should have done to get satisfaction. Their “concern” was less than heartwarming.

Re Galt, you’ll find a lot of negative feedback on the web. I bought a cellar from them a couple of years ago and my experience was excellent - great service, great price and the cellar was exactly as I had requested. I have no affiliation with them, but I am an extremely satisfied customer.

Perhaps I am just a lucky exception?

I live in Houston so Mike at Galt was one of the first people I contacted. He can be very long winded, but was very informative and a non BS kind of guy. I ended up buying my cabinet from him and have been pleased.

I had an amazing experience with them ona unit that I custom designed. Holds over 1000 bottles. They did exactly as they said they would. I would not hesitate to recommend them or use them in the future. I even moved from one house to another and they helped find the right people for dos-assemble and re-assemble.

Feel free to PM me with more info.

Looks like they are trying to do this on their Yelp page also:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/galt-wine-cellars-bellaire" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A quick Google of the (apparently fake name) “Marcus Wheat” + “wine” reveals some shockingly slanderous and personalized comments against Vinotemp (i.e. discussing the daughter of the founder). This fits in exactly with what Eric Anderson said (somebody from Galt apparently has a personal vendetta against Vinotemp). What a bunch of clowns. Luckily Yelp is pretty good about removing astroturf, I’ve flagged the review.

I dunno… despite the people who’ve had positive experiences, I’d avoid them just because of the astroturfing, the negative experiences and, for me, the blatant Ayn Rand worship. I’d probably overlook the latter if everything else was crazy positive, but it’s not and, well, look at the email addresses on http://www.galtwine.com/contact.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Anyone THAT into Atlas Shrugged makes me nervous.

I had a terrible experience with Galt from November 2006 through March 2007.

Long story short, after 4 months (on a 6-8 week job), I was told by Cary at Galt that the “original builder” could not complete my contract. At that point, they suggested they could honor the contract if I gave them another 6-7 weeks as they had “2 alternative architectural millworkers” who also built for their ChateauCraft label, or I could dispute the charge with AMEX, however they would not issue a credit.

Thank god I used Amex.


Good luck.

Funny. Vinotemp and Galt were involved in a lawsuit with each other in 2003, which would explain the vendetta.

Thanks for all of your help. I am now totally confused.

I would recommend against Galt. I have been shopping for a walk-in wine room and got in touch with Galt. They always made me feel strange in their website, their somewhat bizarre emails (I have a slew if anyone wants to see them) and their pushy sales tactics. I finally found the manufacturer of the unit I wanted and got in touch other distributors. Galt promises a low price guarantee (with lots of loopholes) and thus when I found a lower price, I checked with Galt to see if they would match. They then embarked on an interesting email thread, claimed the unit I was comparing was of lower quality, blah, blah, and after a few escalating emails, I finally got a note that said they didn’t want to do business with me. In other words, they realized they were about to have to honor their “I will pay you 2x the difference if you find a better quote” which is what the claim. Hey I guess I should take 'em to court for not honoring their commitment!

I have to admit I brought up the above reputation questions from earlier posts, as I wanted to see how they would react. And react badly they did… They basically said:

• I wasted their time (I maybe emailed with them about 5 times - I guess spending thousands of dollars isn’t much of a big deal to those high rollers who have gone bust before)
• I probably didn’t understand the ‘big words’ they used on their website (we will not get into education, as that would be really fun and a seriously losing proposition for those bozos)
• They don’t care about ‘uninformed opinions’ (last time I checked they were supposed to inform customers and not browbeat them into submission)
• And when I let them know I would post here about the interaction, they said very sarcastically, they “envy the amount of time some of those folks have to spend chatting like teenagers”

Fun stuff! Glad I didn’t go through them, their professionalism clearly shows.

For the record I’m going with a company called Vino-Cellars.com in Livermore (and no I have no connection to them other than they were very courteous, helpful, educational, and had the best pricing).

If anyone has had any recent dealings with Galt, please PM me. Thanks.

I had an excellent experience with them eight years ago. They built a 1200 bottle custom piece for me that I still use today.