So I requested my allocation for a recent release to be held until I gave the ok… last week I receive an email from the winery’s shipping agent saying that my wine had accidentally been shipped, blah blah. I emailed the winery to alert them of the issue in hopes that they prevent it from happening to anybody else, and got the following response:
“Hi Peyton,
Thank you for writing. I am so sorry for the error in delivery. You are absolutely welcome to return the wine if you feel uncomfortable accepting the delivery at this time. Return shipping can be scheduled at no cost to you.
As far as the integrity of the wine, I can tell you that we fill bottles a little higher than normal and any spike in temperature would cause the bottles to leak. If there were temperature damage, you would see seepage from the cork. I would be surprised to find this since the wines are kept at controlled temperatures, but please do not hesitate to return the order if you see any indication that the wine has been compromised or if you simply prefer to receive the wine when originally scheduled. You are welcome to keep the order now and let me know as you open them if you feel that the wine suffered any damage.”
To make matters worse, I requested (twice) to change the delivery address to my office since no one would be home, and received no response, so now the bottles were on a truck all day (high temp 75), and were not delivered since no one was able to sign for them. The situation will be the same tomorrow, so the earliest they’ll actually be able to be delivered is Wednesday.
I hate to refuse delivery since it was not the fault of the winery, but I am worried about heat damage. If you were in my shoes, would you refuse delivery at this point, or take it and remove a capsule or two and check for seepage?
I recently received a shipment that FexEx accidentally marched up and down California for eight days in relatively warm weather. The winery (Bedrock) was completely sympathetic and offered to take back anything that wasn’t pristine.
When it finally arrived, I inspected the corks, which appeared fine. I then tasted a bottle and it was gloriously fresh. I’m going to keep the wine (case and a half) unless a questionable bottle pops up.
I’d accept the wine, inspect it, taste it and then go from there.
I would keep the wine. But it is not my wine. It’s yours. If you are going to be concerned about it, send it back. You requested it be held, and are right either way.
Change your shipping address to your office. Someone will always be there and a commercial address is less expensive to ship to. This change will minimize future issues.
Receive the wine and check for leakage, taste a bottle too.
Based on #2 keep it or return it.
Crap happens. I’ve had a long time favorite winery ship early by mistake. It wasn’t the end of the world.
Because I rely upon lists/shipping for most of my wine, I have had a few errors similar to this happen. I personally don’t like their response. It puts most of the burden on you: checking the wine and reshipping it back and if you balk at sending it back but later think there may have been damage, then you are stuck with it.
Here are some of the scenarios that have occurred for me:
(1) After I notified a winery of an error they were able to contact the shipper, change the shipping priority, and do 2nd day air at their expense to minimize any potential damage.
(2) They comped me the shipping and said if I didn’t like it, I could send it back at their expense.
(3) They let it ship and when there was damage, they let me keep the case and shipped a replacement case – but it was the next vintage.
I also don’t like their CYA ‘leakage’ line. They make it sound is if there are no leak marks, you shouldn’t send it back. Again, it puts you in a position of having to ‘sell’ the damage to them and the burden is on you. What if there were no leak marks but you felt the corks had been drawn in.
As a general rule of mine, if a wine company messes up shipping twice, I drop them. It sounds to me as if they messed up a few times in one order. Companies that have that little attention to detail usually continue to mess things up.
With that said, 75 degrees is not that bad IMO – though not ideal if it sits too long. There are many areas of the country where it is hard to avoid such temps. It might only hit 75 for a short period and it will still have some insulation in the box and won’t be getting direct sun. Just saying.
I’ve had similar situations happen. Bottom line, I joined UPS My Choice so I could have pkgs held or have them delivered to another store. FEDEX is my preferred carrier because you can have packages sent to another store free of charge and don’t have to pay them $25 a year for minimal convenience.
I would ship it back out of principal if it’s really bothering you; you did give specific instructions…
If it were me, and I didn’t see any signs of damage, I’d keep them and not worry about it. But that’s just me, and I’m someone who believes wine is far less fragile than many wine geeks believe.
If it bothers you or is going to color your experience, take them up on their offer to replace them for you. It’s not perfect, but to me (and again, this is just me, not saying it’s wrong for someone else to feel differently), this is well within the range of the occasional imperfections around us in life that I’m better off forgiving and overlooking rather than getting worked up about.
I would not accept unless I planned to drink it over the next year, and then I would still not be happy. The bullshit about filling the bottles high is just bullshit.
You can sign up for UPS My Choice free of charge. With the free version you get notifications when packages are going to arrive and you have the opportunity to have the package held at UPS for will call pickup. You can change other delivery options for a fee.
I signed up for the similar service with FedEx, but haven’t been getting notices. I need to figure out what I’ve got set wrong.
Bingo. They went above and beyond on the customer service end. Take a look, take a sip, and react appropriately [and rationally]. Dont act “out of principle”…it was a mistake and they owned it. Hope it all works out.
Better yet invite me over and let’s drink them all. Well call them when fully inebriated and insist they over night another case because we still are not sure!
I wouldn’t worry about the heat, most wine stores keep their wine at this temp all of the time. They sound pretty forthcoming as well.
I have signed up for UPS and Fedex. I get emails when the packages are in the hands of UPS and Fedex from the beginning of their transit. I have the ability to have both of them hold my wines at my local facilities instead of putting the wines on their local delivery trucks. I swing by afterwork and pick them up. I have apps on my phone for both, so I know when they have arrived at the UPS or Fedex locations.
Hah I was actually wondering about that. I’m relatively new to the wine hobby/love/whatever this is, and have never heard anything of the sort.
Agreed, I have been nothing but satisfied with the winery response. The shipping error and all other communication failures have been with their shipping agent.
I appreciate all the insight… I’m just going to take delivery and drink one, and if it isn’t up to par with what I think it should be, I’ll deal with that appropriately.
Wines are a lot tougher than we give them credit for. Many of us here really baby our wines protecting them from any major fluctuations in temp at all costs…and that’s great. However, if you’re going to drink these wines in 1-3 years I’d say that they’re all safe. You may see some slight shift at the 3 year mark…but it would be minimal.
If it were first growth Bordeaux, Grand Cru Burgs, Barolo, or anything you wanted to age for 20+ years…then I’d be VERY concerned about the shift or sitting in 75+ degree temps for a week.
