There’s a difference between generally accepted customer service and bending over for a customer. While they did give you good customer service, your request is a shameless overreach.
I admit to having drifted away from your point of view.
What is/was your reason for shopping at Los Angeles Wine Company?
I’m surprised how many people here feel like the neither store nor the winery has any responsibility to sell what they’re claiming to sell / a wine fit for consumption. While I can understand how some might not think it’s a big deal, write it off, etc. and I can understand how a seller might have trouble making this right after 13 years, I’m surprised that so many seem to think people have no obligation to sell wine that’s fit for consumption.
Quality personal attack there, Andy. I have no idea why you have chosen to be unkind to me. Duly noted.
Whether I am reasonable or unreasonable has nothing to do with L.A. Wine Co.'s TCA returns policy — they are completely unrelated to each other. This thread has never been about me, so it’s unfortunate to see so many folks trying to make it about me.
The price of the wine has nothing to do with L.A. Wine Co.'s TCA returns policy. Not relevant. No idea why you would bring this up,; I’m guessing it’s part of your personal attack.
I am not “shaming” L.A. Wine Co… Not here, nor did I “shame” them over the phone. I didn’t even argue their policy with them — not one bit — but I suppose you assume my phone call was some long, drawn-out complaining argument with them. Sorry. It wasn’t. I called to inquire about their policy, they asked me when did I buy the wine?, I told them when I bought the wine, they told me their policy (along with the b.s. lie about storage conditions), and I said “O.K.” (and told them but we both know storage conditions have nothing to do with TCA), then we wished each other a good day. Entire phone call lasted probably about 40 seconds, and was entirely amicable. I then post here re: L.A. Wine Co’s policy re: TCA returns, and state my opinion about that policy. As a reminder, I was told they will accept TCA returns only if the bottle had been purchased in the prior 2 months. I do not think that is a reasonable policy; you are free to think otherwise. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with posting here about a store’s TCA returns policy — it’s information many folks want to know when they’re deciding where to spend their “wine money.” I never said, or suggested, that anyone should not spend their money at L.A. Wine Co… As much as you would like me to be some crazed, foaming-at-the-mouth guy about this, I’m simply not.
“Somehow manages to get replacement from the winery to avoid backlash” — this makes no sense. I “somehow managed to get a replacement” because I emailed the winery, told them the situation, and asked if they could help; I emailed them before I even posted in this thread. I have no idea who you think is trying to avoid what backlash.
Andy, a couple questions for you (I invite anyone to answer these questions):
- If you owned and operated a wine shop, what would be your TCA returns policy?
- If you owned a winery, and were the winemaker, and chose to bottle your wines under cork, under what circumstances would you want your customer to accept a corked bottle without any recourse?
For my part, my answers are:
- All TCA returns allowed.
- Absolutely none. I would never want, let alone expect, one of my customers to open a bottle of my wine, find it to be corked, and then have to just accept it.
Some bizarre interpretations on this thread. TCA amounts to a fatal flaw in the original creation of the product. Is there another product that is designed to last decades (or, more accurately, be used decades after purchase) in which this would be considered acceptable caveat emptor? How about medical joint replacements? Or home building?
The 13 years part is a red herring for two reasons, IMO. First, the no returns policy is 30 or 60 days, so the magnitude of the number above that threshold is irrelevant. Secondly, LA Wine Company sells plenty of wine that is designed for aging and sold at a premium because of it. Per the store’s policy, should '16 PLL or '15 Brunellos be consumed within two months of purchasing? The store can choose to adopt a policy that shifts all the risk to the consumer, but Brian doesn’t deserve to be pilloried for pointing it out.
LOL. Yes, you’re just posting things. If people choose to interpret things a certain way, why it’s their own fault!
I made no assumptions about your interactions with the store, but highlighted your unreasonable expectations. Clearly, being unable to return a 13 year old bottle somehow encouraged you to publicly call them out on their policy. That, to me, is unreasonable. Others can disagree 
Well, if it’s “irreplaceable” then how would it be replaced? LOL. And then, if I were to post about a corked bottle of La Tache, I suppose I’d have a bunch of people attacking me for being “unreasonable” for wanting such an expensive bottle to be replaced/refunded/given store credit for. One person’s $5 is another person’s $30 is another person’s $3,000. I would never be so presumptuous as to tell somebody else what is, and isn’t, expensive or cheap; it’s all relative. I also wouldnm’t assume a situation like this is solely about money. My only regret in posting this thread was including the wine and how long ago I purchased it — after 11 years here, I really should have known many folks here would focus on these non-relevant facts. I’ll do better next time.
I acknowledge and respect the spiritual divide on whether wine consumers “should have to” just accept corked bottles and “write them off as a loss.” We’ve had that debate on this board hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
The shaming comments are ironic: the only attempted shaming going on in this thread is some of you trying to shame me.
I’ve shopped at LAWC since the latter part of the 1980’s and have always had a good experience. Their prices are among the lowest and the owner is a straight shooter. I don’t recall the wording of the post as originally made (it’s been edited twice as of this writing) but at the time, and after the 2nd edit, my perception is it does not reflect favorably on LAWC, as though they should have made good on selling a bad bottle from 2007. I agree with the others in this thread who felt the expectations were unreasonable, and the tone of the OP’s post is to publicly call them out on the store’s policy as if they were the ones being unreasonable.
And this is totally fine. But the thread isn’t about that, and — quite frankly — I now regret including this information in my post because it’s not relevant.
This post is about L.A. Wine Co.'s TCA returns policy. The bottle I called them about — its age, its price — has nothing to do with their TCA returns policy.
I’m curious how you would approach this situation if you were in the store’s or winery’s shoes, Andy.
- If you owned and operated a wine shop, what would be your TCA returns policy?
- If you owned a winery, and were the winemaker, and chose to bottle your wines under cork, under what circumstances would you want your customer to accept a corked bottle without any recourse?
The 2 edits were:
- changing topic title
- correcting misspelling in changed topic title.
I’m not hiding anything. Being 100% straightforward.
Not sure how people are making the jump from “inquiry” to “expect” or “entitled.” I do expect a corked bottle to be replaced or refunded, but not necessarily by the store. The store, however, strikes me as a pretty reasonable starting point when dealing with the issue; after all, I did directly give them my money in exchange for a product, so it makes sense to me that they would be my first point of contact regarding any quality issues I may have with that product. That’s typically how returns work — you bring them back to where you bought them, not where they were made.
The difference is that you deserve it.
I respect your opinion, even though I disagree with most of it (I agree my request is shameless: I feel no shame in asking that a defective product be replaced or refunded).
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on these questions:
- If you owned and operated a wine shop, what would be your TCA returns policy?
- If you owned a winery, and were the winemaker, and chose to bottle your wines under cork, under what circumstances would you want your customer to accept a corked bottle without any recourse?
As you said, you’ve been around here for a while. This being the internet and all, you probably should’ve expected this type of response…
Anyway, to answer your questions, I’m not in the wine business or sales business. I don’t know enough about the business, customer relationship, or have any concrete data on TCA rate, margins, etc to make an informed decision. In short, I’m not qualified to answer those questions, but the policy would probably not include 13 year old bottles 
Thank you. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
re: the part I put in bold, above: I, too, acknowledged this in my opening post, and in my own mind before I even made the call to L.A. Wine Co… But so many folks here want to ignore that because — well, you know — never want to pass-up an opportunity to engage in some condescending virtue signaling, right?!? It’s amazing how people only see what they want to see, and hear only what they want to hear …
Thank you, Max. You understand where I was coming from.
But you did pick up the phone, didn’t you? And that’s really the issue in my mind… I think we beat this to death now 
To put a finer point on it, this actually isn’t about TCA policies at all. I am sympathetic to the issue of corked wines, and generally believe the store and not the consumer ought to bear the risk of loss. This is about common sense and not being a jerk – no matter what the policy says – especially at a time like this when wineries (and some stores) are really struggling. It’s that you don’t seem to understand.
I’m just not sure what LAWC could have done here. The handling isn’t great given the language around storage, but anyone going back with that period of time between purchase knows full well that the cork producer isn’t going to stump up for the effect their product has had - ultimately that is who is responsible.
Because of that, the retailer is going to experience a loss on a product that the buyer already knew had a non-zero risk prior to purchase, and also likely knew that this would be the case when they decided to return it.
The distinction here is whether you think wine has a TCA guarantee for its life upon purchase?
I know very few people who would answer yes to that. My answer would be that I buy cork closed bottles in the knowledge that there is a risk it might be a dud. It’s part of the hobby.
The only environment I ask for corked bottles to be replaced is a restaurant, and you pay excess for that privilege, just like Wally’s higher prices.
As for what a wine store’s policy should be, the reality is it’s a customer service issue because the supply chain cannot support recompense of the underlying defective product - there are too many hands involved and then the very nature of the product introduces doubt. How do I know you know what TCA is? How do I know you haven’t left this next to your stovetop for 6 years? How do I know you just don’t like it? How do I know you haven’t put corked wine into that bottle? All these things are ridiculous but it can and I’m sure does happen.
So really, it comes down to how much a retailer cares about taking care of a given customer for a given problem. I would base that decision on what kind of customer they are, to be honest, and whether the issue being corrected is in line with the general perception I am seeking of my brand. I would imagine in most cases it’d result in a goodwill refund.
The same applies to a winery, and I think you’ll find most wineries will refund in cases like this, just because them being perceived as wanting the customer to be happy above all other costs is good for the brand.
In this industry at least, the commercial positives of a customer being made good retelling the story outweigh the commercial cost. TCA in particular has a low enough incidence rate where that is near guaranteed to be true, particularly as bottle cost goes up.
I think you’ll find some merchants would play ball beyond a year after purchase and some won’t. A year seems about the limit that I would feel ethically comfortable asking for a replacement. I still wouldn’t do it, knowing how awful retailer margins are, and that I prefer to have several retailers in successful business in my region than a replacement of 1% of my purchases for a problem I knew would be a risk when I bought it in the first place.
Thank you for your comment, Julian — specifically thank you for keeping it free of personal attacks. And it’s nice to see some conversation regarding what folks feel a reasonable retail TCA returns policy would be.
It would also be interesting to see what folks think a reasonable winery TCA returns policy would look like.