I’ve been a loyal customer of a small Napa producer for several years. I also helped facilitate a commercial relationship with a retailer which was very beneficial for him. I went long on the 2005 vintage. There was order confusion. I told him if he already processed my first order to not process my “second” order just being placed. He processed both.
I recently received an email offering for the wine from a clearence retailer which was about 1/2 the “special” price I paid. I’ve sent an email to the producer and asked for redress. Frankly, I’m pretty decided to terminate our relationship if he doesn’t make my at least somewhat whole.
Steve there are a number of producers that are forced to soft sell their inventories in this economic environment. I see wines going for well under retail all the time. I guess it depends on how well he knows you. When times are difficult, allegiances are often forgotten.
In this environment there is a lot of timing involved in buying high priced wines - prices are falling but you have to be able to gauge when the buying opportunity is as you may miss it…
That being said it sounds like you know the guy / are a good customer…I would send a nice e-mail simply stating you were very upset to see the wine discounted and that at this price level you will have to re-think of doing biz in the future…If he does not come back with a “Hey I can get you a couple of mags for the trouble” or at least offer something (although not the discounted price) I would just move on and stop doing biz with them…
Steve - if it were me, I would be upset that the wine was significantly cheaper now but I wouldn’t kill a relationship over it. Stuff like this happens and especially in this environment as Jack mentioned.
It also could be that the winery severed a relationship with their distributor who then dumped their remaining inventory cheap to get the product out of their warehouse/system. It could be the retailer decided to dump the wine b/c he/she isn’t getting it anymore for whatever reason or it could be the winery had to drastically cut their wholesale price to get someone to take the wine.
That being said, if the purchase by you was fairly recent, I would contact the winery and ask what if any thing they may do to keep you as a customer. I mean you have already helped them a great deal by purchasing 2 cases of wine, even though you really only wanted 1.
Tony mentioned various possibilities for why the wine might now be cheaper in the marketplace than what you paid. I think it’s worth mentioning to the winery to see what they say, and if they do anything.
HOWEVER, at the risk of stating the obvious, if a consumer wants to buy a wine for the cheapest price, it’s rarely the case that buying winery-direct results in a price that’s less than the lowest retailer price.
One of the things that made direct purchase attractive is that the wine was never offered at retail before this vintage. The only way to get it was direct.
I think he should have offered more to his loyal list customers at some ridiculously low price before dumping it in this fashion (he didn’t make such an offer).
I see your angst but first off why pissed? I can see saying “sh*t” but you seem to imply that the producer “did” something. It’s just the market. I think the double order is a red herring unless you tried to nix the second case and they would not let you, but I don’t think that happened.
If the wine had skyrocketed in the auction market no one would expect you to send the winery more money. I assume you bought this to drink and if you thought it was a good enough wine to buy 2 cases at $90 a bottle the fact that the wine is now $45 does not make your initial decision any less valid.
To me it seems like you have a relationship with this person and I’m guessing you are thinking of straining it over a sum of money that is not small but not huge (of course it’s a lot more than Bob H spent at the PLCB on that Spanish wine and look at what happened there). So to answer your question yes, I think you are being petty. I don’t think you should do anything but if you HAVE to I would say sending a semi-joking e-mail to the owner like “Dude, holy heck! That wine I spent 1K a case on is now $500 a case. How’d that happen” Maybe he will send you another six pack or case. But the money you spent has probably been re-spent by him so I don’t think it’s fair to expect money back.
Tony is correct. Several years ago Costco was selling the 01 Phelps Insignia for $89.00. It cost the local stores $98.00. One store owner I know called the winery and the distributor and complained. Neither claimed to have a clue of how Costco could have picked up the wine so cheaply and actually made 14% profit to boot.
I asked the wine manager at Costco where he got it and he simply said I bought out SW&S last palette. If you expect straight answers in this business good luck. It was not the winery’s fault that the distribs needed to move stock.
Steve good luck.
That’s what I did. I also told him I hadn’t made a big fuss about the duplicate order (I did inform him of the mistake as soon as I knew of it) before (besides the weather for shipping question) because I figured I could spin it off to friends at my cost - which was hard to do now that the wine was selling at half that price.
Finding a wine for less at retail than direct is not unusual at all. You really can’t complain about that. If the wine was already released to retail, you could have looked it up on winesearcher and found it for less. If it was not yet released when you bought it, it was just bad timing.
Accidentally getting two cases when you only wanted one is a different story. If you really feel that there was error on their part for the double order, I would offer to send the second case back, or ask for a discount on that second case to save them the cost to ship it back. How much of a stink you make depends on how much you want to maintain the relationship.
To reiterate, the wine had never been sold at retail before this vintage. It was all sold direct. There was no “dumping” offer made to loyal list customers - which is what I would have done if it were my wine (both from a brand and customer relationship perspective).
From a retailer standpoint, we always had an unwritten rule, that we would never sell a wine for less than what we had previously sold it at. That unwritten rule, around since 2001 was abolished with the current economy.
It sucks for you and it sucks for anyone who “overpaid” but, alas, it is a sign of the times.
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