They gave me a refund… I realize what I wrote sounded like they sent a new bottle.
James, I honestly always wondered how they handled it since they don’t have consistent stock and their verbage is a little vague. Thanks.
Didn’t have a chance to read through all the replies but -
Most retailers do NOT guarantee wines over 10 years of age and usually state this in print -
The BEST way to handle this is when you are ready to place another order with them - talk to the wine department and explain to them that you had a corked bottle and would it be ok if you got a credit on your next order - usually the store doesn’t get credit for the corked bottle from their supplier, so as long as the retailer isn’t losing money on their next transaction with you - they will give you the credit -
99% of the new wine retailers purchase is 100% guaranteed by their suppliers. So it’s no problem to get credit when they need it. Purchasing grey market and secondary market wines is a cash business - with no refunds. So you end up eating the corked bottle on those types of purchases. This is particularly true with older vintage wines from private parties etc -
interesting, will try that method. I just prefer to tell them the day it happens so they don’t think i’m pulling their leg.
I don’t know if the laws on this vary from state to state, but you’d think that we could all agree that items sold in commerce should be suitable for their purpose, and a corked wine clearly is not.
And I don’t get this distinction between sellers of wine – retailers, re-sellers, etc… They’re all selling wine, no? Except for wineries, they all got the wine from somewhere else (which is reselling, right?) That inspection thing in the grocery store meat example is a red herring: Forget meat, if a grocery store sells me a bad can of peas, they need to make it up to me in some fashion, although they obviously never had a way to directly inspect the peas before selling the can to me.
If a commercial entity is sells an obviously flawed product, why shouldn’t that seller stand behind the product when the flaw (e.g. TCA) isn’t about matters of opinion, likes/dislikes, old wines vs young wines…
FWIW, I have never returned a corked bottle to a retailer - my view is that the retailer had no way of ascertaining the presence of TCA and wasn’t responsible for it. Now I admit I rarely buy wine that I open immediately - maybe I’d have a different impulse if I did, especially if I knew the wine came from a local distributor and the retailer could put it back to the distributor.
Now if a retailer - even a reseller - sold me wine that I couldn’t inspect before buying that turned out to be cooked or otherwise visibly damaged, I’d not hesitate to go back to that seller, complain (nicely of course!), and give the retailer the opportunity to make it up to me. The reaction of that retailer would influence my future business dealing with the retailer.
With regards to the first part, I know that we can return tainted goods to the wholesaler, so we really welcome it. Makes customers hugely happy.
Second part is not as easy as you think, but do agree with you. We stand by all the products we sell, so we swallow some big pills some times.