Waited till today to place my order (on the list for 10 years) and found the box set was sold out. Was able to order the rest of my allocation, but lesson learned…don’t wait.
Had you ever sold any? I sold the mag of Petite Sirah (since I don’t care for PS) because they used to penalize you for not taking everything they offer. After 17+ years on the list and having multiple cases per offering, mags every offering and occasional 3L, they chopped my allocation to the minimum amount of reds per offering and no more large format. When I called to inquire why my allocation went down, as you said Elaine was most unpleasant to deal with. Don’t think customer service is her forte.
Probably not going to make any friends here, but is the issue really that Elaine is bad at customer service, or is it that you don’t like the answer you got? They have been explicitly clear that once you buy their wine you can do with it what you want. But they’re also explicitly clear that they want the buyers of their wine to drink their wine, not sell it. And I think they don’t need distributors, therefore if you decide to act as a distributor then they have the right to reallocate wine to drinkers.
Their winery can do as they please, so the answer wasn’t the issue. The tone, delivery and curtness towards someone who has spent well over a $100k was the issue, so yes customer service based.
Hey Mark - hope you are well, it’s been a long time. You are of course 100% right that they have every right to sell wine however they wish and since they make amazing wines that are sought after they can act on that right more than most wineries that we all enjoy. In terms of my personal recent engagement, i was pretty dumbfounded. Enough so that i am no longer purchasing the wines - and you know how long i have been a passionate fan of Manfred’s wines. In terms of selling, i think most of us have, in some way, “sold” many bottles at cost to people so they can attend SQN tastings like the ones we have enjoyed in SD and Vegas, and the like. I have never sent a bottle to auction. I will continue to enjoy the 100s of bottles of Manfred’s elixir in may cellar, hopefully some with you in the future, but my future spend has been redirected - it is possible to “not like the answer” and not be wrong. All the best
Just a few Years ago Elaine used to be the one who would call the day before the offer was set to close and remind me to place my order. They have changed their allocation system where the wines now sell out well before that, but I was always amazed at that personal customer service when that was the model.
My experience is Elaine is the most caring and accommodating winery owner I have ever engaged with. Their customer service model has been very hands on, and very much hand holding (in the past reaching out to mailing list members who had not put in orders near the end of the offering, etc), but their business has grown and the list has grown, and I think it is unreasonable to expect a personal communication to ask if you are going to buy when their offer letters say they will probably sell out and you should get your order in early. I do not know what others experience, but my experience is that Elaine is one of the kindest and most caring people I have ever done business with.
To be pedantic, but to make a subtle distinction, I was referencing a statement Manfred made on a board (might have been eRP.com) years ago and he was explicit that once the wine is in the hands of the customer, the customer can do what they want. But I don’t think it is mutually exclusive with the idea that they also want their customers to drink their wine and not sell it, and that if people are selling (even at cost) they would rather give wait-listers the opportunity to buy wine directly vs. using a current customer as a mini-distributor. I know that many people, after Manfred’s post, thought it was an open invite to flip their wines, but I do not believe that was the intent.
I remember a few years ago, they had problems with email not being received to hotmail accounts. I was also affected.
They called me every offering (both SQN and NoK) by phone to let me know there was an offering and if I was buying.
