It sounds like BevMo has pretty wide spread misuse of the shelf talkers, and worse, it’s pretty damning when two different shop managers give two very different answers as to why.
The truth is that a lot of people rely on the shelf talkers to make wine choices. A 91 point score is always going to stand out at a low price point, and clients who buy by the shelf talker are going to gravitate to that. It’s totally misleading if it’s not the exact wine (whether it be off by vintage or vineyard designation), and stores know how much a 90+ score helps sell a bottle of wine. Heck, some clowns even started a wine brand called 90+ Cellars, and the stuff sells like water.
As the story notes, it’s not just limited to in-store orders and shelf talkers; orders placed on the Internet also are frequently incorrect.
Vintage shift isn’t limited to BevMo (although they may be a top offender), and it’s not even limited to retailers. How many times have you ordered a specific vintage of wine in a restaurant and they bring you a different, “latest” vintage? It happens quite often, I’m afraid. While a good server should come back to the table to mention the vintage substitution and ask if you still want it, many servers will either not notice OR bring it to the table anyway and hope you won’t notice or won’t raise a fuss.
My negative experience with bevmo and this practice is mostly centered on white wine. They have repeatedly subbed in much older bottles on whites that are best fresh. When I get to the store I flat out refuse to accept it and ask for a refund.
But on red wine I have taken advantage of their inept employees to get things much cheaper.
Can you explain how this comes up? I don’t quite follow. You order wines ahead to come pick up, and then discover they’re giving you older vintages of the wines than you ordered?
I see what I consider a similar thing at a local store with a large wine selection. Their print add will feature a photo of the wine with vintage clearly showing and the price. Sometimes the price is very good so I have gone to the store to purchase only to find out that the wine available at the advertised price is not of the vintage shown in the photograph. With some wines, that makes a big difference. Their excuse. We use stock photos. I no longer go to the store without calling first.
Do you work in wine retail? Personally I tend to think that most wines, if made from the same grape(s) and/or blend + sourcing won’t usually vary that much from vintage to vintage enough enough to matter to the vast majority of customers. But… people with knowledge and better palates can tell differences and expect honesty and clarity from a retailer. Actually everyone does. Over and above the basic ethical issue here, anyone paying more than (OK, I’ll pick an arbitrary figure of) $20 has a higher expectation that the wine will match the shelftalker reference, especially when their are point scores quoted.
I think the point is that the vintage may not be all that big a deal to most people but the retailer has an ethical obligation that the information being provided to help sell the wine be correct. I do all the shelftalkkers where I work and we NEVER use winery tech notes from incorrect vintages whether there are scores quoted or not. If I can’t find notes for the specific wine I’ll give general variety notes or some other sales pitch info. Sometimes I’ll quote a previous year’s score BUT will say it’s for a different vintage on the card (usually only when the correct vintage hasn’t been rated). It just seems like anything short of that is sleezy.
No more. BevMo!, the secretly held wine and spirits retailer situated in California, is the subject of a legal claim that guarantees the organization occupied with a sleight of hand estimating system, attracting clients with costs for wine created during explicit years that were not accessible in its around 150 stores.
Costco labels give the ratings of the past three vintages. Making it fairly clear to check the vintage and if they dont have a rating for that vintage it says NR
They are pretty clean in my book.
BevMo is pretty awful in general around here so I don’t even bother going in. Selection is abysmal and limited to wine factories (much more so than totalwine)
The last time I was in one, they had a ton of 2nd wines from big Bordeaux estates, with shelf talkers describing the grand vin. At first I thought it was just incompetence but it seemed to be pattern & practice at this location through out the French aisle.
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