Most deceptive wine business practices to watch out for

[Lee_Braem]

How about “Robert Parker gave this wine a 94”?

The review was by Wine Advocate. They are going for the Parker name recognition. And for the newer notes they don’t realize that Parker retired some years ago.

[Joseph_Grassa]

Most of what is being described here I consider marketing fluff and not deceptive or particularly insidious. More underhanded to me are the wine clubs that tout their “unique” or “exclusive” wines, which are really just private label junk.

true but most marketing is intentionally misleading. At my old local store there was a rep, who began helping me with bourbon. He would tell me if he thought something was over-hyped, or if there was something he felt was a better more affordable alternative. He would also tell me if he thought there was a better more expensive alternative. It was clear he had both the store’s and my best interest in mind. He eventually left and went to another store. He didn’t want to steal business from the first store so he didn’t tell anyone where he went. I tried to find him because I would rather buy from someone like him. A year or so later my uncle bumped into him at another store. He then became my wine guy and put me on to my all-time favorite affordable wine. He is no longer at that store, but we became close friends. And now we hang over a few bottles of wine. In fact, he told me about wineberserkers in the first place. If I had to pick buying from a store he was at or another, it is a no-brainer every time. But that imo is honest marketing.

[Joseph_Grassa]

For a while there maybe 10-15 years ago, there were several retailers (all from New Jersey in my recollection) that put very low prices out for search engines to pick up, but they inevitably didn’t have those wines at those prices, and after you would order them on their website, someone would contact you and say “Oh, we are all out of that $50 2005 Bordeaux, but we have that producer’s 2007 for $55, can we substitute that for you?”

It was a weird model, and I wonder how many people would fall for it. I haven’t seen that in awhile, though, or maybe Wine Searcher has cleaned those out over time.

That was a huge problem early on with W-S, then reappeared briefly some years later. They don’t and can’t tolerate it because it renders their service useless.

It makes no sense, anyway. People use W-S to look for very specific wines. I can’t imagine such a crude bait-and-switch working with wine geeks. It just wastes peoples’ time and pisses them off.

tbh most of this stuff doesn’t work on enthusiasts like us, or at least not more than once. it is really the less knowledgeable consumers that are usually the ones being duped.

[J_Rock]

I don’t think moat of the things mentioned above are deceptive. Rather, they are just reasonable marketing. Just like you probably wouldn’t expect a movie trailer or car commercial to quote the bad reviews, I think it’s a bit silly to expect retailers to go out of their way to highlight poor scores/reviews. If the retailer highlights high scores on most wines and one just says “’…this region is a rising star…’- [Wine Critic],” I think it’s anything but deceptive.

One actually deceptive thing I’ve seen that I don’t like is using the high number in a barrel score as the actual score (e.g., saying a wine receive 100pts when it only got (97 - 100)).

[Ian_Sutton]

Or a trans shipper that replaces one of your purchased bottles from the retailer with a lesser bottle (lacking retailer sticker), charges you for insurance, and then refuses to replace bottle or compensate you in any way. I’ve been slow rolled over 6 weeks now.

That does not sound like a ‘deceptive business practice’ ; sounds like it has crossed over into outright fraud.

Start a separate thread and out them.

My guess would be an individual employee. The higher-ups simply don’t believe you and think you are trying to scam them. Especially vulnerable to that are binary thinkers. They make an absolute decision (wild assumption) right away about what happened, and that’s that. No amount of evidence you present will change their mind. They’ll view subsequent instances of the same thing happening the same way (ie. some new scam the kids are pulling). If you do, somehow, manage to break through their armor and prove to them something they believed as absolute fact was incorrect, they will heavily resent you for it.

I had something similar recently re: a ‘failed’ delivery. The shop owner, who I’d bought from a number of times before, refused to entertain that the courier might have lied. It took a demonstration that we had video evidence of all movement outside the property on the days they claimed delivery was attempted, plus a deadline after which I’d start ‘small claim’ proceedings, before he ingraciously backed down, with a parting swipe wondering how we had the time to do this. Looking at trustpilot, this wasn’t the first such instance of blindly believing the courier, and is a real shame as I would have continued to use that business.

I’ve always said that you really learn about a business when something goes wrong. Any business can get it right 99% of the time, but it’s when it goes wrong that you separate the best from the worst. The best sort it out fairly and promptly (and FWIW it’s that I value the most, rather than any more protracted resolution and a cash apology), the worst turn a bad experience into a relationship ending one.

[Joseph_Grassa]

I don’t think moat of the things mentioned above are deceptive. Rather, they are just reasonable marketing. Just like you probably wouldn’t expect a movie trailer or car commercial to quote the bad reviews, I think it’s a bit silly to expect retailers to go out of their way to highlight poor scores/reviews. If the retailer highlights high scores on most wines and one just says “‘…this region is a rising star…’- [Wine Critic],” I think it’s anything but deceptive.

One actually deceptive thing I’ve seen that I don’t like is using the high number in a barrel score as the actual score (e.g., saying a wine receive 100pts when it only got (97 - 100)).

I think highlighting the poor reviews would be the opposite extreme. I think most of these are just about being consistent. Don’t use a region’s vintage score where you are using the wine’s score on other bottles. Don’t use a different vintage’s score where you are using the specific wine’s score. This doesn’t mean don’t use a different vintage’s score or the regions score at all. Just don’t try to trick people into thinking it is the bottle’s score

Most of us use a specific or several specific wine critics as guides. I have seen retailers who do the same, and only show reviews by critics they find to be trustworthy. It wouldn’t be highlighting the poor reviews if you simply had 3 fields for scores. Say WA, WS and Vinous and you left them blank when their was no score and actually put the score even if it was low. This is just 1 of hundreds of ways to be more transparent about the information.

There is definitely a fine line, but I think marketing is so often intentionally deceptive that our expectations are too low.

[B_Beachy]

I’ve seen some people puff up CellarTracker scores when only two or three random people have reviewed a wine.

[Arv_R]

true but most marketing is intentionally misleading. At my old local store there was a rep, who began helping me with bourbon. He would tell me if he thought something was over-hyped, or if there was something he felt was a better more affordable alternative. He would also tell me if he thought there was a better more expensive alternative. It was clear he had both the store’s and my best interest in mind. He eventually left and went to another store. He didn’t want to steal business from the first store so he didn’t tell anyone where he went. I tried to find him because I would rather buy from someone like him. A year or so later my uncle bumped into him at another store. He then became my wine guy and put me on to my all-time favorite affordable wine. He is no longer at that store, but we became close friends. And now we hang over a few bottles of wine. In fact, he told me about wineberserkers in the first place. If I had to pick buying from a store he was at or another, it is a no-brainer every time. But that imo is honest marketing.

He warned you about this place, and you still waded in ?!

[Mattstolz]

For a while there maybe 10-15 years ago, there were several retailers (all from New Jersey in my recollection) that put very low prices out for search engines to pick up, but they inevitably didn’t have those wines at those prices, and after you would order them on their website, someone would contact you and say “Oh, we are all out of that $50 2005 Bordeaux, but we have that producer’s 2007 for $55, can we substitute that for you?”

It was a weird model, and I wonder how many people would fall for it. I haven’t seen that in awhile, though, or maybe Wine Searcher has cleaned those out over time.

wine.com did this for a long time. I dont know if they still do or not. or total wine where its available in their Dallas store, but guess what youre in PA where they cant ship to you.

[Arv_R]

I had something similar recently re: a ‘failed’ delivery. The shop owner, who I’d bought from a number of times before, refused to entertain that the courier might have lied. It took a demonstration that we had video evidence of all movement outside the property on the days they claimed delivery was attempted, plus a deadline after which I’d start ‘small claim’ proceedings, before he ingraciously backed down, with a parting swipe wondering how we had the time to do this. Looking at trustpilot, this wasn’t the first such instance of blindly believing the courier, and is a real shame as I would have continued to use that business.

I’ve always said that you really learn about a business when something goes wrong. Any business can get it right 99% of the time, but it’s when it goes wrong that you separate the best from the worst. The best sort it out fairly and promptly (and FWIW it’s that I value the most, rather than any more protracted resolution and a cash apology), the worst turn a bad experience into a relationship ending one.

My guess is that in normal American suburbia, more than half the houses have some kind of cameras now, with some even registered with law enforcement in case there is a crime where they need tape. We had a situation over the weekend where there was some kind of mischief with doorways at two houses, neighborhood email blast went out around 5ish pm, and by 7pm people had pulled tapes and the question had turned into ‘who are these two boys?’ that they had pictures/video of, from multiple angles

The idea that couriers/agents can play the ‘I left it at the front door’ is a lot harder now when everything is tracked and recorded. That being said, I don’t think they’re the main problem – its the porch pirates.

[Ian_Sutton]

I’ve seen some people puff up CellarTracker scores when only two or three random people have reviewed a wine.

fwiw Eric is happy to take action where there is evidence of someone spamming high scores - just contact CT support

[Otto_Forsberg]

I’ve seen some people puff up CellarTracker scores when only two or three random people have reviewed a wine.

On a semi-related note, I’ve actually seen couple of places use my CT reviews to advertise wines.

I’ve also seen a picture I took of my Musar vertical lineup used around the internet in multiple unrelated articles.

[RichardFlack]

One thing I’ve noticed more in physical stores in the last two years has been old stock being mixed in with current releases e.g. I saw a 2013 blanc mixed in with the current release 2018’s over the weekend. This will particularly screw over the person ordering from an Instacart type of intermediary, or perhaps the innocent spouse dispatched to the store, and instructed to come home with a favorite estate.

Our local monopolista actually uses the same SKU for multiple vintages of some products. This is what happens when you put department store ppl in charge of a wine business.

[DErlinger]

One thing I’ve noticed more in physical stores in the last two years has been old stock being mixed in with current releases e.g. I saw a 2013 blanc mixed in with the current release 2018’s over the weekend. This will particularly screw over the person ordering from an Instacart type of intermediary, or perhaps the innocent spouse dispatched to the store, and instructed to come home with a favorite estate.

Or they might hit a home run with some bottle age?

I had this happen at a local wine shop where I thought I grabbed a Pierre Peters Cuvee de Reserve but found the one Reserve Oubliee mixed in there that wasn’t in their inventory. Still rang me out with Reserve Oubliee pricing that I didn’t notice until I got home.

[Max_S1]

I had something similar recently re: a ‘failed’ delivery. The shop owner, who I’d bought from a number of times before, refused to entertain that the courier might have lied. It took a demonstration that we had video evidence of all movement outside the property on the days they claimed delivery was attempted, plus a deadline after which I’d start ‘small claim’ proceedings, before he ingraciously backed down, with a parting swipe wondering how we had the time to do this. Looking at trustpilot, this wasn’t the first such instance of blindly believing the courier, and is a real shame as I would have continued to use that business.

I’ve always said that you really learn about a business when something goes wrong. Any business can get it right 99% of the time, but it’s when it goes wrong that you separate the best from the worst. The best sort it out fairly and promptly (and FWIW it’s that I value the most, rather than any more protracted resolution and a cash apology), the worst turn a bad experience into a relationship ending one.

I’m very much in favor of outing business owners like this.

[DErlinger]

Or a trans shipper that replaces one of your purchased bottles from the retailer with a lesser bottle (lacking retailer sticker), charges you for insurance, and then refuses to replace bottle or compensate you in any way. I’ve been slow rolled over 6 weeks now.

Had this happen to me recently. Neither the original shop, the importer in France, US Customs, nor the importer in the US discovered the error.

[RichardFlack]

“Expect to taste …”. This prefix adorns many notes in the KGBO catalogues these days. Short form for “we haven’t actually tasted this but wtf we’ll run this up the flagpole anyway …”

[Abhi_M]

The DRC of “______”

[Joseph_Grassa]

One thing I’ve noticed more in physical stores in the last two years has been old stock being mixed in with current releases e.g. I saw a 2013 blanc mixed in with the current release 2018’s over the weekend. This will particularly screw over the person ordering from an Instacart type of intermediary, or perhaps the innocent spouse dispatched to the store, and instructed to come home with a favorite estate.

Our local monopolista actually uses the same SKU for multiple vintages of some products. This is what happens when you put department store ppl in charge of a wine business.

I think it is just a matter of “business” mentality. If you think business is purely about making money, it is inevitable that the practices won’t align with things wine enthusiasts expect, or even worse, things that are considered ethical.

I was watching a good clip of Denzel Washington talking about news having the priority of being “first” to the market. It is a balancing act between how sure you are that the information is true, or unbiased, and the more you focus on “first” the less you can focus on true or unbiased.

In the case of a wine retailer, if your focus is simply to sell the wine, some practices get you caught immediately, and with others the harm is less salient, so you can get away with it for a long time. Hopefully this post just helps, pulls a little bit of business away from the companies doing things less ethically, and drives more and more of the businesses in the direction we likely all would hope.

[Arv_R]

…or this thread gives more profit boosting ideas to all the rapacious out there.