From Napa/Sonoma area to Long Island, NY via UPS ground. Shipping today or tomorrow for arrival next Thursday .
I did request the wine be held to the fall and the winery concurred . I just sent an email to the winery.
The wines are not expensive but …
Feel free to chime in .
Unless they arrive with ice packs still frozen, send it back.
I like that!
Wow that’s insane. Its been 104F all week out here. Your swill is cooked.
Clearly not a producer I would ever want to do business with…
I will wait until the situation settles out before forming any conclusions.
Is there any visual way for me to tell if the wine is cooked?
Bruce - did the winery respond to your email? I had a similar situation last year, where I asked for wine to be held and it shipped anyway. Turned out to be a screw up by the fulfillment company, NOT the winery, and the winery took care of everything.
Who cares? Lets say it shows up looking awesome- you store in cellar for a couple years open the first bottle and not impressed so go to grab a 2nd and its worse. Zero recourse at that time. Accept nothing short of a refund of money or them shipping your wine in fall.
Not yet. It was just sent yesterday afternoon. my limited experience has shown they respond in a timely manner.
It’s “obvious” if the corks are pushed out and/or if there is seepage from the top of the corks. However, your wines could have been
exposed to damaging temps and still look OK. There would be no way for you to know until you taste one.
Given the ridiculous temps ACROSS the country, I would send the wines back and ask them to re-ship with new bottles in the fall.
And find out why in the (*^%$ they are shipping via ground during a heat wave in July!!!
Bruce
Bruce,
Why not call them? Some businesses simply are bombarded with emails and may not respond to them in a timely manner.
As others have said, it very well may be a ‘screw up’ by a third party shipper - but at the end of the day, it is for the winery to ‘make good’.
Keep us posted - and also note that sometimes, wine is a lot more ‘durable’ than we give it credit for . . .
Cheers.
Thanks for chiming in from someone ITB.
In the past, the phone calls don’t get returned too quickly , if I recall correctly . This is a small(ish) wine maker , no tasting room (I don’t think), more of a farmer/grower who sellls most of the grapes and also makes wine. That’s the vibe I get, anyway .
Thanks for the prompt reply. You just never know - and you seem to have a small window to ‘turn things around’ and so you want to take any possible route in order to do so. My business number is my personal cell phone, so I am never too far away from any current or possible customer.
The winery can still catch the shipment after it’s left and request it be returned to them before it gets to you - and then reship when they said that they would. And you noted that these were ‘not that expensive’ - so these are wines that you’re going to be enjoying sooner rather than later? Curious . . .
I will say that Fall is a challenging time for most winemakers and small wine businesses - our focus certainly shifts to the current harvest and vintage, and it’s easy for things to ‘slip through the cracks’.
Good luck and keep us posted please.
Cheers!
My plan is to call on Monday if no response prior to then.
The wine is a 2017 Rose of Pinot Noir, so sooner (wasn’t planning on drinking it this summer ) rather than later . And I am one who thinks wine is less fragile than others , given the fact that I store some wine in my non-cool (in summer ) NY basement and I never had a bad bottle .
I have had Pinot Noir from this winemaker and have had Pinot Noir from other winemakers using grapes from the same vineyard .
I seriously would call today - you said the wine was scheduled to go out yesterday or today. You could stop it in it’s tracks before it travels too far.
It’s 9:30 here right now - give it a shot please.
Cheers
Yes father ! Lol.
Now go sell some wine or stomp some grapes !!
Keep in mind that many winery’s fulfillment companies use refrigerated trucks to transport the wines to a regional UPS/FedEx center, where they pack them with ice packs for final delivery the next day via local carrier.
I’m not saying this will fix the issue in the hottest weather, but it is a effective and valid prophylaxis against the less than extreme summer weather situations.
Ice packs generally last about 48 hours even under moderate heat. Responsible fulfillment houses use temp control refrigerated transit to regional hubs in the summer where ice packs are inserted just prior to handing off to carrier for ‘last mile’ delivery. Under these conditions it is imperative that packages are delivered on first attempt. For returns, the package needs to reach the destination hub first. Mistakes happen, please give the winery a chance to respond.
Winery has responded and acknowledged the request for them to hold til fall. They are checking with the fulfillment company .
This does little good if they are shipping across the country and the rest of the trucks and warehouses are not temperature controlled.