it’s not that so much as the fact that, if you can find the wines elsewhere (even as pre-arrivals) you will almost certainly get the wine sooner from those other stores. I think the financial worries in the 2008-09 timeframe were reasonable things to be concerned about though the store seems fine now.
I’ve never had a problem returning damaged wines back to my local retailers. PC won’t take returns, so that should be taken in consideration. That said, I’ve only had positive experiences with PC and when they were unable to deliver, they offered an even better deal to me.
IMO, Ponzi scheme.
But who knows, really?
I watched CWC up close, and PC was the model.
I sold 100/1 more than I bought, but other people love them. I think a lot of the wines I’ve had are a bit iffy in terms of transport care. Just IMO. Others have more/better experience.
I think this retail model is dead.
Good luck!
Please post these retailer’s names, so that I can take them off of my list too.
Were you being serious about that comment?
This is a major issue if you’re buying a lot of wine. We also don’t know about how the wines are stored before PC gets them. If that takes years, and one of the summers is 2003…
Moving forward I will likely only buy in-stock items, and only on really great deals. So far, they have always delivered…eventually, but with a full cellar I am not buying the same quantity of wines anymore, so I would rather pay a little more to find someone that can ship me the wines immediately versus waiting through 2,3 or 4 hot summers where the wines are sitting god knows where in Europe. I am going back and labelling all of my past PC futures purchases so I can track to see if there are any heat issues down the road.
To be clear- I am not concerned about ponzi schemes and that garbage. They have offered me store credit on any of my outstanding orders… it has only to do with provenance. They might take great care and ship in reefers in the dead of night during winter- but what about the 3 years since the wine was released before it is in their possession? I have just grown weary of playing that game of chance. I have learned that heat damage can be very subtle and not really show until years down the line. Not worth it at this point in the game for me.
No problems, total happiness for at least a decade. A few cases where they didn’t get the wine, they offered me something better as a substitution.
Thanks for your input everybody.I decided to look elsewhere,don’t need the headaches.
like everyone said, if it’s in stock there is zero headache. I think you said the wine was instock. It’ll get to you immediately after you ask for it to ship with no waiting. Their problem is with pre-arrivals.
Again, unless it is corked or cooked. There is no denying that, unless of course you are a huge buyer. Then maybe it will make a difference. I don’t know, as I never bought enough. But just enough to have problems with “pre-arrivals” (funny term for what they do), and with in stock wines that were corked, and I was basically told to pound sand…very nicely of course. 
For the first time in your life, no doubt. ![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}