I do think late March or April would be a lot better than May. Even here in the Northeast, I consider shipping season over at this point for anything going across the country. Shorter shipments are a different story.
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This isn’t even close. I had the USPS deliver an express package from NW CT to upstate NY, about 50 miles away, in seven days because it had to go to Jacksonville, FL first for sorting. No one has explained that logic, yet.
I don’t disagree with you on that. Unfortunately, it just has cash flow implications for many wineries not having many sales for 6-7 months when the majority of the costs are coming in. And it also then compresses the window between a fall, winter and a spring release (which most seem to have), which has other more intangible effects, such as customer fatigue: I myself check out mentally when I get too many consecutive offers from a producer in a short period of time. That means less sales. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that.
It just shows how bad a need there is for a door-to-door cold chain concierge solution. That would solve all problems. I’ve done the math on it and I can’t make it work financially.
I understand that the timing is tough, but many small producers make it work with 2 shipments per year.
Door to door cold chain would be ideal. Unfortunately I can’t imagine bow it would work at a reasonable cost. The Fedex and UPS options seem great for areas near big cities, not so good for more remote areas.
Wine shipping customer service 101. You don’t ship hold orders until you have confirmation from the recipient. If you screw up, you own it, whatever that may entail.
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I will proactively reach out to the wineries and ask them not to ship noting that the temperature between NorCal and SoCal is too warm to ship. Sometimes they ship anyways and then I need to decide if I am going to reject the shipment. I really like how Saxum has a sticker on one bottle per box that tells you if there was heat exposure to the wines. I feel like this should be in every shipment and I would even pay for it for the peace of mind to know my wine wasn’t cooked while in transit.
There are several wineries that will proactively hold back shipments if the weather is too warm. I commend this greatly.
I haven’t purchased any wine since March and my last shipment was during a cool week in April. I wouldn’t want to receive any wine until late October when we are out of the summer cycle.
Can you offer cold packs as an option for your customers? Some wineries will offer these, others will use them no matter what. If we’re paying XXX for wine, a few extra bucks for cold packs isn’t going to kill too many sales.
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Styro packaging is expensive, not easy to acquire and takes up a lot of storage space. The foam bricks are good for 2 days max. Condensation from thawing plays havoc on labels. We offer the option only for 2 or less day transits. And generally wrap the bottles in attempt to protect labels.
First, to answer your question about wineries that reach-out before shipping (I’m in L.A., just like you):
Goodfellow
Halcon
Cayuse
Ladd
re: your second question, and previous comment:
Yes. If wineries are currently shipping without any regard, or paying attention, to the weather right now they are being irresponsible/negligent/risky.
Now, if the winery is willing to replace bottles upon request, then great — they should! That does, however, ignore the irritation/time/hassle the customer has to go through to solve the problem that was not of their own creation — being a customer should not be that hard. Yes, I understand that “things sometimes happen”, and people should be patient/understanding about that. But shipping without paying attention to, or giving any regard to, current weather is NOT “things sometimes happen.” “Things sometimes happen”, in my book, is the carrier screwing up; or some sudden, not foreseen, material weather oddity.
If a seller of wine cannot get it to me safely then I won’t be buying from them. It’s that simple. As a customer, I do not care about whatever organizational, logistical, functional, etc… difficulties this may present to the seller — I’m not the one in business of selling the goods! These problems are not the customer’s responsibility or concern. If a seller is unable, or unwilling, to safely get the wine from their possession into mine, then I’m not buying from them.
And this is why I **never buy wine that needs to be shipped to me — sometimes it seems there is nothing in the world more difficult to safely ship than wine. It’s a stress-filled hassle of which I want no part. Lucky for me, I live in a place where I can get away with this approach and not suffer greatly for it; I recognize that many others are not similarly-situated, and thus shipping of wine is often the only available option — I would struggle to live in a place like that.
** except for:
- one retailer in Northern California, who offers cold packs in their shipments at extra expense (I always pay for these) – and they, too, contact me before shipping (and I assure you I am the tiniest of tiny fish in their pond, so if they’re doing it for me they must be doing it for everybody); and
- whatever wineries from whom I am currently ordering direct. (that list is currently two wineries long, and they’re both listed above).
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It also seems like more wineries are “automatically” putting their late Spring deliveries on weather hold for shipments across the country which is the right thing to do. I understand in some cases this release is added to manage their cash flow and I don’t have a problem prepaying for a wine that won’t ship until the fall to help the small wineries out although at the end of the day I’d prefer a two times a year release schedule
UPDATE: Picked up at 11 this morning. 6 bottles of Champagne from Hi-Times. Generally they are very good with communicating but not this time. Bottles were not warm, but not cool either. Instant read thermometer on the outside of the bottle said 71 degrees. Assuming the liquid inside probably a bit lower. Even with champagne being most sensitive I’m probably okay. Could have been a lot worse.
Ordered some wine from Michael’s in Sarasota, was informed yesterday that it would ship today. Did not realize 1) that the wine was in 2) that anyone ships wine on a Thursday (??) and 3) that anyone would ship wine with the forecast here in the mid to high 90s over the weekend, when the wine will clearly be sitting on a truck or in a warehouse waiting for Monday.
Emailed and called several times, no response, no answer. Will be pretty disappointed if these wedding year bordeauxs get baked.
Just got Ceritas delivery today - no previous contact. 3 other board favorite wineries last 2 weeks - no contact. Ridge, Failla - never any contact. Lioco - no contact. So, I think the examples are the exception, not the norm.
A reflection: Other winery participation on this topic is very absent. There is no upside. ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
But this has been very informative and I’ve heard you. I will now change my release windows and do my spring release in March instead of April moving forward, to avoid getting into these questionable months. And not ship wine anywhere from May until Oct (the shipping part starts effective immediately and I will update website to reflect that). I was going to have the cutoff in mid-June, but it’s already too warm everywhere. I still very much want to participate in BerserkerDay, but rather than having that as a kind of semi-winter release, I will confine BD to library deals and verticals/special bottlings, and leave the new releases for the official spring release to create enough difference between the two.
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shipping wine is a luxury for all involved, winery, retailer and consumer
without shipping, many many folks would be SOL with enjoying great wine
without shipping, the business of wine would suffer
yet, if you live somewhere where it’s either cold or hot AF or both seasonally, live that and be happy
the best things in life are local, non-corporate, unmodeled, and easy
did I say shipping is a luxury?
what if wine couldn’t be shipped? LOL
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I was hesitant to “name names” because I can only relate my experiences and recognize others may differ. As an example, I received 3 emails from Ridge this spring, each sent about a week apart, before my order was shipped. They all contained something like the following:
- Signature (21+ years of age) required for delivery
- If you are unable to receive your wine the week of March 21st, please contact us to arrange an alternative shipment date.
- If your order contains multiple bottle sizes, different bottle sizes will be packed separately and may ship on different days.
- All address updates and shipping date changes must be submitted by Monday, February 28th.
Looking back through old emails, I get similar notifications from Ridge consistently each year.
He’s right. I basically have two months in which I can receive wine, March and November. While the weather is good here December through February, it is generally too cold somewhere along the route and we risk freezing. And April though October? Forget about it. In fact, I do my best not to even order any wine April through October.
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I’m sure I would do something similar. What are your thoughts on the condition of wine you buy in your local market? Do you buy much there? Does wine you have shipped in tend to be he more expensive/ageworthy? I’ve been curious about how Florida residents deal with this for a while. Texas too, but I think it’s not nearly as easy to get wine shipped into Texas.
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Florida is not a problem, FL is the solution, just ask Todd Hamina
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the perspective I have is that if I don’t live near the winery
and the reason for that is that I live in a state with super cold or super hot seasonal weather
then, I’d be happy to have wine shipping available at all!!!
everything would be relative to the fact that I don’t live in a place that grows grapes for great wine
shipping is a non-environmentally friendly luxury for all, no doubt
In the local market it is no different than anywhere else, thermostat is set to 72-75 degrees. Whether it is Florida in the summer or New York in the winter, that internal temp should not vary much.
The majority (over 90%) of wine I buy is shipped. My main supplier, he has at times accumulated a dozen cases for me waiting for the weather to be right. But I try not to do that to him and just wait to make the purchases closer to shipping windows.
I used to buy a good amount from B-21. They offer refrigerated van delivery to Orlando for orders over $500. But their offerings and business model has changed, so my purchases with them are off significantly.
And lastly, for Berzerkers Day, it falls at the perfect time for me. The orders go in at the end of January, by the time everyone is ready to ship it’s a month later and right at the beginning of my window.
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