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….
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