Should An Online Retailer replace a corked bottle?

WINE TALK
21

Actually, quite a bit different. If the meat is rotten, the grocery store meat department has the opportunity to inspect it and reject it if there’s a quality issue. And they are required to put a “sell-by” date on the package. In sum, the grocery store has an affirmative obligation to take steps to sell you wholesome meat.

With TCA, by contrast, there is no way for the retailer to know in advance whether any particular bottle in fact IS corked. Now, most regular retailers will refund your purchase price if the bottle is corked. But with a re-seller, they typically have “terms and conditions” specifically disclaiming any warranty as to the condition of the bottle being sold.

Bruce

22

I was told by a very well respected winery around these parts, after I called them about two corked bottles in a row that i had bought directly from them 6 months earlier, “We dont have corked wines.” Only time I ever called a winery about this. They will remain nameless because in the end, they did replace the wines after they asked that I ship the corks on my dime. [truce.gif]

23

Finally received my replacement Barolo today (delayed for shipping due to weather).

Bravo to Rare Wine Co. Not the best pricing, but it’s well worth the premium to have service like this.

24

BUt that’s WHY they don’t have the best pricing. They charge slightly more but they’re very careful about provenance and have awesome service. I like that model personally. Others might want rock bottom prices, but I think that they then have to accept that they can’t demand the best in customer service policies re replacement, etc. The rock bottom pricing eliminates the margin used to absorb the occasional off bottle.

25

Interesting… Garagiste states in every email “While we do everything in our power to insure your wine is of the finest stock available in the world, WINE PURCHASED THAT IS OLDER THAN 10 YEARS IS NOT GUARANTEED IN ANY WAY.”

Was your wine younger than 10 years old?

26

I would ask. If they do, then they should build that into their pricing structure. If not, they should make it clear and that would factor into my decision to place future orders.

27

Bingo!

28

Benchmark replaced 2 cooked bottles for me (mags of 1989 Diamond Creek). Garagiste has also credited me for corked bottles.

29

They were not

30

bpwine gave me $25 credit on my next order on a $100 bottle of burgundy on an order of a few decent bottles of burgundy. I now consider that a sunk cost as I don’t intend on spending that more than $25 there in the future…

Now if they said 25% off my next order or “half off the next bottle” it would have been significantly better… but $25 doesn’t even cover tax and shipping on that order! And to top it off it’s credit for a future order not just a $25 refund.

Reasoning “we don’t usually refund for older vintages”. (1993). New old what’s the difference when it comes to corked?! It was corked in 1993 and it was corked in 2010!

31



32

Those of you who regularly return flawed bottles – do you keep a file of all your receipts for years and years, or do the retailers take them back without receipts, or do you only return recent purchases?

33

Alan,

Sorry about the bad bottle. I would tell the reseller and let them get back to you. If nothing else, it can be good feedback about the particular lot that they bought and perhaps others had a similar problem.

It would be great if they gave you some sort of compensation, but I’d look at it as pure upside and good karma points rather than any entitlement.

Hope we don’t have any bad 1992’s in a month!

34

Same bottle, or something comparable?

35

On three occasions I have returned corked bottles.

  1. A bottle of Ruffino Chianti Classico Riserva Ducale purchased from a local wine shop. The following day after opening the wine (which was about a week after purchase), I walked into the wine shop with the opened bottle. The owner was in an aisle, saw me and promptly grabbed a replacement bottle before I could say a word.

  2. Purchased (2) Pinot Noirs from a vineyard in Stag’s Leap District during a 2009 Napa vacation. Opened the first bottle 3 months later at my home in Connecticut. Bottle was corked. I phoned the vineyard tasting room the following day informing the young lady of my experience. I told her I was not asking for a replacement, but wanted to know if they wanted me to return the bottle and cork for them. She said “absolutely not”, and offered to send me a replacement bottle shipped at no cost. I was very appreciative and told her to make it two bottles, and I will pay for one. She paid for shipping for both bottles.

  3. Same Stag’s Leap vineyard as above. Opened the second Pinot Noir a couple months later. Corked as well. I phoned the same tasting room lady. She remembered me, apologized (as if it was her fault?), and not only offered to replace the bottle, but also sent me a higher-priced Pinot as a courtesy. I have since opened all four bottles and all drank wonderfully. They also found a customer for life.

36

for online purchases I enter my invoice number when I enter the purchase on CELLARTRACKER.

Garagiste has also credited me for oxidized bottle of 89 riesling recently

37

Yes they should and in my experience they have on the few occasions I’ve chosen to “return” the corked bottles. Luckily most people aren’t that TCA-sensitive so it probably works out for them. Corked wine is a defective product to me and therefore unconsumable just like a bad TV or spoiled meat. I am a good customer and will not “return” a bottle if it is merely questionable. Unfortunately both my husband and I are TCA-sensitive.

Please PM me if you would like any specific online retailer background on this issue as with anything everyone’s mileage may vary.

Also on this note check out this WS article:

http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/43702

if this is accurate uh oh (note I don’t know if it is or not…)

I want to give Kudos to Rare Wine Co. for their fantastic service. I opened a bottle of 1996 Azienda Bricco Rocche (Ceretto) Barolo Brunate for my birthday dinner (Wetrock, Hagen, Dietz, Paul Lin, and Rob Winn might remember it from the last bottle I opened, which was spectacular) and it was no bueno. Poured into the decanter brown, almost no nose to speak of, and when I grabbed a taste, it was shot. Cooked.

Todd, I had a very corked bottle of this from Rare Wine Co. Maybe that is why they were decently priced? [cry.gif]

38

They probably just offered to you the amount of “profit” they had in the bottle…which quite frankly what any seller of wine should do regardless of where they bought or what their policies or recourse up the chain are…really the least they can is not make a profit off of selling someone a bad bottle. To enhance it even they could have and should have offered you more for a store credit as they have profit built into those sales as well and then they might have kept you as a customer…perhaps by saying 10-15% off your next order up to a $100 discount…doesn’t cost them anything out of pocket and likely keeps a customer happy…

39

I also think that retailers should build these types of returns into their pricing and business model just like most businesses do when they have reserves for loss or spoilage…given how few people actually return corked bottles a decent volume retailer could just add $.50 or $1 per bottle to every bottle and earmark that for a loss return account…or perhaps think about it as marketing because if a customer is unhappy about something like this not only will they likely not return but they will tell others.

40

FWIW,Ian of Wine Library recently credited a corked Prager immediately.
Stand up guy and business.
I’ll be back.