Been seeing this merchant pop up more and more on Wine Searcher, has anyone purchased from them before?
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Was also curious
They sell thinly-disguised pre-arrivals from Europe.
That was my conclusion. As far as I can tell nothing is actually in stock in the USA. You buy and eventually they ship it to the US for last mile distribution. Everything seems to be in case increments, haven’t looked too deeply. Kind of a “you can ask any price until there’s a buyer” type of operation. Looks like there is a growing vendor segment in this space. What’s the cost? A website? A US based distribution partner for a vig? At least with most gray marketers they either hold the property in country or should soon have it here.
All irrelevant to me as they are not in the space I play as a wine buyer for personal consumption. As someone in the industry just need to sort of be aware of broad trends. About Rue Pinard
NOT RECOMMENDED. I was intrigued by what looked like a big stock of old fortified wines. But I had two bad experiences and I would recommend steering clear.
First, I bought what was labelled as a 1900 Madeira for what seemed like a great price. When the bottle arrived, it seemed very suspect, and sleuths on this board convinced me that the bottle was not what was claimed (sorry hyperlink function not working, but here is the thread: Seeking info on old mystery bottle of maybe Madeira). I contacted the company about the discrepancy. It took awhile, and they ignored me for weeks, but eventually conceded their mistake and gave me a 20% discount on my next purchase, but would not refund me any money.
Since I was given a discount, I tried to use it towards another old Madeira. Again, the price seemed great. But after I paid, I got an email that it was “out of stock”. I checked the website the next day, and the wine was still there, but they had jacked the price up. I guess they realized that with the discount it wasn’t worth selling to me at the listed price. Pretty sneaky if you ask me.
I’m definitely not a fan of them.
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Timely question Brian as I just started seeing this retailer yesterday on W-S. Mostly seeing them offering lowest-listed price on 6 packs of recent vintage Barolo. I’m sure they are doing the same thing as many other retailers on that front, but maybe slicing their margins a bit thinner to have the lowest listed price. Given the minimal disparity on the wines I searched, I’d probably go with the next-best offer from more known and trusted shops.
Guess I’ll be the new guinea pig here 
Ordered a case a week ago and hoping for the best in light of these responses….
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How much is the shipping cost? I had assumed it would be very high given that all the wine is in europe.
Mine was ~$20/btl, which I did not think was too bad considering where the wine was coming from
Not suggested. I bought a bottle of Krug listed as 150cl. But received a regular 75cl one. The seller just kept repeating it is not his fault. And the bottle takes like 2 months to be received.
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Sounds like chargeback time.
Those who have ordered from them and had problems can/should also report them to Wine-Searcher. At least in the past, it’s my understanding that they would remove merchants from their listings if there were too many complaints.
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Hi everyone,
​Bart Laming from Rue Pinard here. We realize this thread is from late last year, but we recently saw it and wanted to address the feedback directly and transparently.
​First, @Nick_Ryan and @Marc_Hanes: You nailed our model. We don’t hold local US stock. We are a Liv-ex member operating a hybrid platform—at our own risk and trading account—sourcing directly from European bonded warehouses. We slice our margins thin to pass market pricing on to you, but the trade-off is the 6-8 week lead time for international customs and temperature-controlled shipping.
​That said, we clearly dropped the ball with customer service last year, and we want to make it right:
- ​**@Noah_C (Madeira):** Offering a 20% discount for a cataloging error is unacceptable; you are entitled to a full refund. Please email office@ruepinard.com so we can resolve this properly.
- ​**@georgeq (Krug):** Shipping a 75cl instead of a 150cl is 100% our error. Brushing it off is not how we do business. We will gladly refund the difference or take the bottle back for a full refund. Please reach out.
​Since these issues occurred, we have overhauled our operations. We recently implemented new proprietary trading software and catch errors before anything ships.
​When we make a mistake, we fix it. We hope to earn the Berserker community’s trust going forward.
​Cheers,
​Bart Laming
Rue Pinard B.V.
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I’ve emailed Rue Pinard with no responds. 
Please report these shady vendors to wine-searcher!
@Bart.L laughable response: “please reach out to us”. You have all the information you need to make it right.
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I’m getting a message our emails are blocked by your server this is the email In sent you
Dear Zihan,
Thank you for your email and for bringing this to our attention.
I have reviewed your order (NL-20241083) and the product that was purchased was the 750ml bottle of Krug Clos du Mesnil 2006, which is the bottle that was shipped.
The purchase price was approximately €1,200, which is consistent with the market value of a 750ml bottle. For reference, a 1.5L Magnum of the same wine typically trades at approximately double that amount.
Based on our records, the order confirmation and product listing correspond to the 750ml format, and the bottle you received matches the item purchased.
If you believe the website listing displayed a Magnum (1.5L) at the time of purchase, please send us a screenshot of the product page, order confirmation, or any other documentation showing the 1.5L specification. We will be happy to investigate further.
Kind regards,
Bart Laming
Rue Pinard BV
Hi Andy,
We take customer concerns seriously and are committed to resolving any legitimate issue fairly and professionally.
Unfortunately, based on the information currently available to us, we are unable to identify the specific order or transaction you are referring to. To investigate properly, please provide the relevant order number, invoice number, or any supporting details.
Once we receive that information, we will review the matter promptly and work toward an appropriate resolution.
Regards, Bart Laming
Rue Pinard
office@ruepinard.com
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Like @georgeq, things haven’t gone well for me either.
I don’t enjoy shitting all over this guy @ Bart.L or his company but the terrible customer service continues. Bart from Rue Pinard resurrected this thread to offer me a discount. He did so on this public WBer forum, so I think it’s only fair for the WB community to know that this refund never happened.
If you look above, he said:
“Offering a 20% discount for a cataloging error is unacceptable; you are entitled to a full refund. Please email office@ruepinard.com so we can resolve this properly.”
I emailed him a couple times, no response. I DM’ed him here and he did eventually respond by email (16 days later). I’ll let the email exchange speak for itself:
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Hi Bart,
Thanks again for the offer of a refund. Is there anything I need to do from here to make that happen?
Noah
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Thing is, Noah, the bottle needs to be shipped to me in Europe, and that’s going to be very difficult to get it here. It’s going to cost a lot of money, so maybe we can find a middle ground here.
Bart
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What did you have in mind?
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Like I said I can provide a discount to prevent us having to ship it around
To recap, he publicly offered me a refund, then in a private exchange told me it was too expensive, and instead wants to give me a discount. That’s how this all started- by him making a post saying that a refund was, to use his word, “unacceptable”. Pretty shady to offer to give my money back in public and then privately decline to do so.
As I said in my first post, highly NOT RECOMMENDED!
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LOL, 2/2 cases quoted here did not get resolved. What a fraud, @Bart.L
