Scam alert -- Grapeswine.com

They took my money in March of 2019 when I ordered a case. They didn’t have it in stock (even though the website indicated they did) and when I would contact them they said it was delayed but should be shipped promptly.
In November/December I started asking for my money back. The guy on the phone agreed and asked ‘accounting’ to refund. This happened for multiple weeks and multiple phone calls. They are now not picking up my calls anymore and not responding to emails. I now have an open dispute with my CC but since its been so long they are giving me a hard time.

WineSearcher.com brings them up on many searches as the lowest cost but be wary.

I found another thread citing Institutionwine.com, which I think is their other alias.

Attached is a screenshot of their HQ as per Google StreetView.

Yikes. Sorry to hear about this, and thanks for letting us know.

I think there’s another thread on these guys

I’m surprised these guys are still in operation and not behind bars.

It might have been back on the Parker board. My basic take on it was to never order anything they couldn’t ship right away.

I also remember someone describing them as the grape swine people…


As always, not to be confused with Grapes the Wine Company which is a class act.

Report them to wine-searcher. I reported them and they only said they will research it. More people that comes forward with putting into these situations.

Here’s the thread from a year ago on GrapesWine and Institution. Same kinds of issues then.

Someone might consider contacting the NY State Liquor Authority. They tend to come down hard on miscreants with licenses.

Yes! That’s Dan Posner’s shop in North White Plains.

I had similar experience with Institution. I had ordered 2 bottles of an in-stock wine on May 5, 2019. After months of telling me they would “check with the shipping department” I had finally had enough and was ready to go to the state AG. Only after that threat did they finally send me the wine on December 17, 2019.

I hope anyone who has had problems with them does this. States tend to take licenses to sell alcohol very seriously.

Geez, sounds like Premier Cru 2.0. I hope everyone gets their wine or money back.

Actually, if they came up with their name after Dan, they may intentionally be trying to confuse people. He’s spent a lot of time building his reputation and wouldn’t want it sullied. But definitely report these guys. The bureaucrats can be PITA many times, but once you get them rolling on someone, they can be formidable.

Update: Managed to get through to them (I ended up hiding my phone number when calling and they picked up). Assured me that they would refund me by the end of the week. We will see.
I directed them to this thread on WB and told them that I would love to update the board on the resolution.

Don’t think they did. Grapes has existed in CT for over 20 years IIRC, I believe that pre-dates Dan’s shop

Thanks for this thread

Sorry about your awful experience and thanks for posting in order to help others.

Not that it helps you there have been many threads over many years on these guys. I ordered something once and finally got my money back and this was 20 years ago. Think it was called grapes wine of Norwalk and amazing they are still in business.

Please report them to winesearcher and I have no idea how they are still there.

Sadly some who hear about this shop think it is Dan Posner’s great store, Grapes The Wine Company, which is the exact opposite of these scoundrels.

Hard to believe they have been in business as long as they have if this is how they operate. We make errors and forget to take wine off the website the minute we sell out, but we are set up to charge the card when we ship. One of our reps told us to put certain wines we don’t possess on our website and they could deliver the wine the next day for our sale. I can see a hundred ways that could go wrong but there are a fair number of shops that do this and do well.

As far as Wine Searcher, they can’t/won’t do anything unless the miscreant is paying to be on Wine Searcher. Their search engine obviously scans most sites. We don’t pay to be on Wine Searcher but often times we come up when you search for certain wines. Enough times that we got three gold medals from Wine Searcher for 2019; American List in Napa; New World List in Napa and Overall List in Napa. Of course they want us to join up with Wine Searcher but still, it shows they are digging up the best prices they can find. If the miscreant is undercutting the world of wine merchants, he will appear on Wine Searcher. Not sure they can block them otherwise.

They tried to pick off me. No luck.
21st century solution.pdf (311 KB)
Retail, wholesale, and website practices.4.pdf (161 KB)
Retail, wholesale, and website practices.3.pdf (425 KB)
Retail, wholesale, and website practices.2.pdf (483 KB)
Retail, wholesale, and website practices.1.pdf (454 KB)

They are not far from me. Don’t know if I could help but I’d be willing to stop buy in person. Norwalk CT right?

That’s very nice of you.

I’m not sure which came first, but they have both been around. Dan’s store used to be in Rye, NY, close to the Connecticut border, so there was even more confusion.