Ridge - Shipping Limitations

I received a FedEx shipping notification yesterday about a pending shipment from Ridge. I thought this was odd since I didn’t have anything in my cellar tracker and I stopped shipments for the summer a few months ago at this point. I called Ridge and found out a few interesting things:

  1. I had tendered the order in March, it was my Estate wines that they hold me hostage for in order to get my Monte Bello. This solves the mystery of what it was, and I just overlooked pulling these wines into my pending list since I didn’t specifically purchase them, they get auto-ordered.
  2. They had a shipping hold note on the wine from March. (wierd)
  3. They decided to ship in late June because their system showed that shipping temperatures across the country were okay. (even wierder)
  4. They will ship as long as no temperatures on the route show above 85 degrees!
  5. I called them yesterday while sitting in rush hour traffic in Philadelphia where the temperature was 87 on my car thermometer.
  6. My wine was sitting in a Fed Ex truck somewhere in the greater region in the same conditions.

I made a deal with the customer service rep that I am going to open one when they show up today and call them back when they are cooked. Which seems almost a certainty if they spent all afternoon in a truck yesterday. They also had no explanation as to why the wine didn’t ship in the spring and why they didn’t reach out before pulling the trigger on shipping now. I have every faith this thread will end with a replacement order being held until fall for shipping.

What I think is most interesting is that they will ship up to 85 degrees en route. That just seems very high to me knowing how hot the inside of a delivery truck will get if its sunny and 85.

For the record, they left California on the 21st so we are on day 5.

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Certainly seems odd. That said, three wineries (none of them Ridge) shipped without notice to me this week. One did it the right way with overnight. The other two did ground. One got lucky with a very cloudy day. The other did not.

Maybe a good thing I’ve never tasted Montebello, because I can find bottles like Geyserville pretty easily at my local Total Wine. I signed up for Ridge briefly and then realized their pricing was higher than retail, doh!

I live in PA too and I ordered 2 bottles of 2018 Monte Bello earlier this week. In the comment section I requested they be shipped when weather permits. They were shipped out 2 day and arrived today when the temps were 90+. The corks appeared ok and bottles weren’t hot to touch but I’m still a bit concerned since I won’t be opening these bottles for 10+ years so I’ll never know unless they are perfect when I pop the corks.

Agree with you, shipping now makes no sense. I would let Ridge know.