Corked or Bad Wine Returns to Retailers

WINE TALK
21

Not sure if you have ever worked in retail to know how many DOA items there are, which could be from a solder coming loose in transit, a part that doesn’t exhibit failure until used for more than 10mins. Or anything.

So Walmart don’t get redress from Sony or Samsung for a faulty TV? Why wouldn’t a wine retailer be able to get redress from a wholesaler who sold them a faulty good? and the wholesaler from the producer? (ignoring baked on norms that are in place at the moment)

Why is a corked wine not forseeable? You stated the TV manufacturer should have tested the part. Why can’t a winemaker test the corks? (like a lot of them do nowadays). When a bottle of wine costs about as much as a TV, I just don’t get why everyone is giving them a free ride and absolving them of any responsibility in ensuring their products are fault free.

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22

Let’s consider that statement but substituting the retailer for the consumer.

A corked bottle is not foreseeable; the customer never has any redress with importer, distributor, or winery, and he is now being asked to eat the cost of something he clearly has no control over.

Seems like it’s at least as unfair to the consumer. The retailer at least made a profit selling the bottle (e.g. bought it for $30 and sold it for $60 or whatever, I’m not sure what the typical retail markup is). And the retailer has another party he may have recourse to, whereas the consumer has nobody else.

You say “I consider it one of the risks of drinking older wines.” What if someone else were to say “I consider it one of the risks of selling wines which are meant to be aged?”

In practice, I’m like you, I just eat it and move on, but I disagree with you that it’s right that we should have to do so. I think the right thing is that it should be treated like any other defective product the consumer buys.

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23

The specific bottle isn’t forseeable, but a retailer could know that X% of the wines it sells are going to be corked, and Y% of the corked ones will get returned (Y being a tiny number, I’m guessing).

So this isn’t a bolt of lightning out of nowhere to the retailer that a customer comes in and wants a refund for a defective bottle she purchased there.

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24

I opened a bottle of 2019 Napa Cabernet last week that was corked. Initially, I thought that I’d bought it from the mailing list and emailed the winery. The next day, I remembered that I’d bought it locally and tried to return the bottle, without expecting anything to happen. (I can’t remember the last time I tried to return a corked wine… it has been years.)

The wine shop offered me a refund or store credit, but also politely explained that they only have about 3 months to return bottles to distributors. I’m not sure that is fair to the wine shop, but it is what it is.

Went to a more expensive shop down the street and asked about their return policy. They claimed that they will always take back corked wine, regardless of when it was sold. So, I now think of the higher prices as buying insurance against corked bottles (kinda of like in a restaurant, where the insurance is even more expensive).

Winery got back in touch with me and offered to make the wine shop whole for the bottle if the distributor didn’t. Classy move.

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25

This is one big advantage of buying direct from wineries – I can write to Rhys, Kutch, etc. and tell them a wine was corked, and they’ll just send me a replacement and/or a credit.

To a smaller extent, what @JMReuter observed in simply buying a domestic wine whose winery is still a going concern, you at least have a chance to get a bottle replaced. If I bought a corked Montelena at retail 10 years ago and just opened it, there’s at least a chance Montelena would stand behind it, whereas I assume there is very little or no chance with a winery outside the USA.

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26

TV is not a perishable product like wine. You can’t push a button and make another bottle of 2000 Mouton (please no Rudy jokes)

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27

Good points, but think about this.

What exactly makes the business liable for said bottle?

Another part of this is customer loyalty as well. If it’s a great customer, you take it back. You know how many times someone brought back and bottle, got the refund and was never to be heard from again? Not blaming you, or anyone on this thread, but the parts of the process that goes into this decision by a retailer is baked in to a lot of crappy customer behavior (refunds or otherwise).

No matter what the situation with any client complaint, I have always learned to know who the client is in full picture before making any decision. If the OP was a frequent client, and buying things like QC, I would have said, I’ll credit you that amount on your next purchase, and he probably would have been fine with that. Strangely, if it was a first time customer, I would probably do the same thing in hopes that they do keep coming back.

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28

Speaking as a producer here, while I would always want to know about the issue and want to make the customer whole… as a ‘customer’, when this happens to me, I just feel too guilt-ridden to actually report it and end up eating the cost myself. Especially if purchased from a retailer some time long before.

Also on the producer side, I will say that I’ve had wines returned for being ‘corked’ that were anything book. My spouse, who is a winemaker for a different winery, had a new one just a couple weeks ago when a customer claimed a magnum of Blanc de Noir had a ‘leaky cork’… even though it opened up with full pressure. Sometimes you can’t make it up…

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29

The same thing that makes retailers of every other product liable for defects in the product they sold and made a profit on?

I’m not sure if that’s a trick question or if I’m misunderstanding the point.

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30

I was trying to make a different point than the one that says “well the retailer didn’t make it”

To clarify, I meant what is legally binding the retailer to do anything about it at all? I know that in both NY and NJ, there are some limits to client returns (nothing serious), but also nothing that requires you to take refunds on bad bottles of any kind.

Not saying it’s a good business practice, but I’m just purely talking from a whether or not there is anything protecting the consumer, and as far as I’m aware, there isn’t.

31

As a distributor, we would certainly take back corked bottles. Every wine shop I’ve worked in has a shelf in the back where they put the returned bottles; the reps are expected to go through them occasionally, and either credit or replace the bottles.

Since we are an importer too, we would be able to get a credit from the producer; in practice, if it’s just the odd bottle we probably wouldn’t bother. But state laws may well vary widely (we are only a distributor in CA).

We are pushing as hard as we can for our producers to use alternatives to bark cork, so the industry won’t have to deal with this stupid problem.

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32

This age-old debate … there is nothing new under the sun …

Here is the legal answer that is likely to be applied in most jurisdictions within the USA. (and, as with many “answers” in law, you’ll quickly see there is no set-in-stone to-be-applied-everywhere, all the time, answer)

We go to the Uniform Commercial Code for guidance on this issue.

UCC section 2-314: Implied Warranty of Merchantability:
(1) Unless excluded or modified (Section [2-316]), a warranty that the goods shall be merchantable is implied in a contract for their sale if the seller is a merchant with respect to goods of that kind. Under this section the serving for value of food or drink to be consumed either on the premises or elsewhere is a sale.

(2) Goods to be merchantable must be at least such as
(a) pass without objection in the trade under the contract description; and
(b) in the case of fungible goods, are of fair average quality within the description; and
(c) are fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used; and
(d) run, within the variations permitted by the agreement, of even kind, quality and quantity within each unit and among all units involved; and
(e) are adequately contained, packaged, and labeled as the agreement may require; and
(f) conform to the promise or affirmations of fact made on the container or label if any.

UCC section 2-316: Exclusion or Modification of Warranties:…
(2)Subject to subsection (3), to exclude or modify the implied warranty of merchantability or any part of it the language must mention merchantability and in case of a writing must be conspicuous,…

(3)Notwithstanding subsection (2)
(a) unless the circumstances indicate otherwise, all implied warranties are excluded by expressions like “as is”, “with all faults” or other language which in common understanding calls the buyer’s attention to the exclusion of warranties and makes plain that there is no implied warranty; and
(b) when the buyer before entering into the contract has examined the goods or the sample or model as fully as he desired or has refused to examine the goods there is no implied warranty with regard to defects which an examination ought in the circumstances to have revealed to him; and
(c) an implied warranty can also be excluded or modified by course of dealing or course of performance or usage of trade.

To put it simply, retailers (“merchants”) may be liable for breaching the implied warranty of merchantability when they sell a defective product and there was no legally-valid exclusion of the implied warranty. Exclusion of warranties is addressed by UCC section 2-316.

These cases are extremely fact-specific, and there are often reasonable arguments on each side. Whether a wine retailer is liable for breach of implied warranty of merchantability is certainly one of those cases where there are reasonable arguments on both sides. The buyer will point to UCC section 2-314, and the seller will defend themselves by pointing to UCC section 2-316.

Fun stuff.

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33

Corked bottles are a reality and something you just need to chalk up as part of the cost of being in this hobby. If it happens less than once every 20 bottles, I consider myself lucky

Personally, I’ve only ever asked for a replacement on a corked bottle once, and it was directly from the producer. They happily obliged, to which I was very grateful.

On the retail end, I think it depends on the retailer/buyer relationship. If you’re a loyal buyer or spend significantly, I’d expect them to at least meet halfway or offer a decent credit. As a random or very inconsistent buyer, I wouldn’t expect a thing.

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34

How does this apply to controlled substances? I think they are in a separate category.

35

I’m way, way luckier than you, and most. I would say my rate is 1 in every 300 to 500.

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36

Isn’t there evidence to suggest TCA occurs in about 7% of all wine? Perhaps less in newer bottles and more in older bottles with advances in our understanding of how to prevent it.

I may be making that number up, but I could have swore 7% was an accepted number so 1 in 20 is beating the odds.

37

So, “a retailer could know that X% of the wines it sells are going to be corked, and Y% of the corked ones will get returned” lets say that is 10%(not a famous winery :). Are you ok with the retailer adding Z% to the price to cover their anticipated loss? i.e. break even on their “expected/needed” net to carry that wine?

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38

I have any doubts in any TCA numbers over 1%.

I also don’t drink a lot of lower priced wines, which is where I think most of this occurs.

Cheap corks, caveat emptor.

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39

I’ve only ever had it happen in bottles over $100 retail. YMMV.

40

That I can’t explain.

There is also 2 timelines where corks got better. Around 2000ish (give or take a few years), they got better, and in more recent times they got even better.