Easily my best ever wine retailer story

In the world of wine karma I think my friends would say I’m more a giver than a taker. But darned if a retailer didn’t seriously one-up me.

I’ve been buying wines from Blast Vintners (https://www.blastvintners.com/) in London only since the start of this year. Normally what I buy gets transferred to a storage account but I had plans to be in London for a work trip. I ordered a bottle of 2006 Clape Cornas with the idea that it would be delivered to my hotel and I’d have something nice to bring to a restaurant that evening.

It was around 4pm when I realized the wine was not at my hotel and I contacted Joe at Blast Vintners to help figure out where it was. Joe responded to my email within about 5 minutes and started to troubleshoot where the wine wound up (remember this is just a single bottle purchase). By 5:30pm it was apparent I would not be getting the 2006 Clape due to a mishap with the delivery and a worse mishap by my hotel. Joe offered to refund me the cost of the bottle plus a bit more and that seemed to me like a perfectly fair but disappointing outcome.

As I was heading off to dinner, Joe emails me to share that he’s got a friend who is a proprietor at a nearby restaurant and that friend buys a lot of northern rhone. If I can swing by that restaurant on the way to my dinner, Joe’s arranged to obtain a bottle of 2003 Allemand Sans Soufre from his friend and he’s wondering if that might be an acceptable substitute. Of course too good to pass up and just a 5 minute detour from my original destination. This is all getting sorted out at 6:30pm by now so this has been the wine equivalent of a Global Services hotline.

The 2003 Allemand was fantastic (my first sans soufre) and went great with the meal. Massive respect to Joe Gilmour at Blast Vintners who went way, way beyond the call of duty. Buy more of this guy’s wine. Also very grateful to his friend Mike, the proprietor of Sager & Wilde in London, for being a part of the good wine karma process. I’ll be eating at Sager next time I’m in London.

Nice. Sager and Wilde is fun.

Thanks for sharing Charles. Positive retailer stories are comparatively few around these parts!

Does your storage account allow you to exclude VAT and duty?

RT

Great story. Where do you live (i.e. do you live in the US or Europe) for him to deliver?

Thanks for the positive report!

Have a great day!!! :slight_smile:

Thanks for posting your experience with “old-fashioned” service, Charles.

Wow, kudos to them both!

Sager and Wild is an outstanding place. I will also check out your retailer.

Great story to read. Top notch service can’t be beat.

@Richard - yes it’s bonded storage so you can take delivery of wines without paying duty or VAT. You’ll ultimately pay some tax either in the UK or the US depending on where you take delivery but you won’t have to pay both US and UK.

@Loren - I live in San Francisco so normally the path is purchase => UK bonded storage => ship to US. In this case I was in London so the path was purchase => local hotel.

great story - thanks for sharing. how much does it cost you to ship to the US currently?

Great story. Great outcome. Great service. Great wine.

Admire people who go out of the way to help.

This is a heartwarming story - I´ve always loved people who do more than they have to, just to make life easier … (experienced also the opposite, so I appreciate such a habbit very much).

Will pay a visit to the shop when I´m in London …

+1. It’s a bit out of the range of locations that I typically visit, when in London. But, it sounds like it is worth a visit.

Charles – Thanks for posting. Out of curiosity, how did you find/get connected with this shop?

Stopped into S+W when in London recently…Rougeard Poyeaux by-the-glass in a totally relaxed neighborhood bar atmosphere. Yes, please.