It's 95 degrees today on the East Coast -- shipping notification

WINE TALK
1

Do I really need to tell one of the largest wine retailers in the United States not to ground ship my wine on the East Coast in August when it is 95 degrees outside? Really? At least they handled it well when I called them. But, really?

I feel for their customers who don’t know better.

2

Ridiculous! I have had several shipping “fails” this year with wineries (disregarding explicit instructions), and in each case, it was an issue with the third party shipper and was resolved to my satisfaction. But there is no excuse for a retailer, who presumably is directly shipping to customers, to even consider ground shipping at this time.

3

Had a two bottle shipment arrive yesterday, had been picked up the night before and delivered to my house around 2:30 pm. Outside of box was quite warm. Opened it and inside the styrofoam the bottles were still cool/room temperature.

If this had been left outside or I missed the delivery wines would have been cooked

4

So hot it reminds me Riddick’s Crematoria!

5

were they waiting for a heat wave?

6

I love it that the people on the board are weather conscious. We have people ordering expensive wine and ground shipping across the country in the middle of summer and the middle of winter. They get indignant when we either offer to hold the wine til better weather or tell them the wine will be cooked/frozen if we ship ground. There are days I wonder if people shop by nickles and dimes. I can buy it at business A in CA for $59.99, and save $4.00 dollars a bottle with ground shipping across the country, rather than buy it locally for $4 to $10 more and not worry about shipping.

Wine you can’t get locally is even worse. People are paying premium price for a wine and still want ground shipping.

The package leaves Napa on a truck to Oakland, where it is loaded on a train/truck to some town near Las Vegas, NV, then placed on a train/truck that is on/follows Hwy 10 through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri and on up to Kentucky. There it gets loaded on a train/truck to where ever East of the Mississippi it is supposed to go.