So many already named…I’d like to add:
Cayuse
Quilceda Creek (not on the list anymore but they were awesome when I still was)
Marcassin (once you’re on the list)
Ceritas
Jemrose
Cameron Hughes
Lagier-Meredith
^^^This^^^
Nicora is quite possibly the best service I have gotten in so many ways: tasting, club, management.
Some others that have excelled from my experience.
Zepaltas (Ryan Z.)
Buty
Clos Solene (Guillaume and Solene)
Paix Sur Terre (Ryan Pease)
Rasa (for the amazing discounts they do a few times a year)
Loring
Tercero
** I’ll also reluctantly include all those lists that regularly tell me that they don’t have enough wine to let me have an allocation. They at least give me comfort that I am still on the list and give me hope for the future.
k.
Will Segui at Rivers Marie needs to be called out by name. I think we have to go to platinum here.
WTF???
This is the first I am hearing of this! You were supposed to receive only 1 bottle. Thanks for not telling me sooner, douchebag. GFY!!
![[neener.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/3/3bd35321ffd7ed2243d1d518ebb606d554360600.gif "[neener.gif]"){kind=small}
^^i actually cracked up laughing at this. Funny as hell!
For me, “Gold Standard” means “better service than I find acceptable/good.” To be clear, I am quite happy when a winery gives me acceptable/good service (e.g.: responds to my emails; doesn’t lie to me; doesn’t otherwise waste my time or treat me like shit in response to me giving them my hard-earned money for the product they are selling).
For the purposes of this question, I will not consider tasting room experiences — positive or negative, otherwise my Gold Standard list would be way too long, as many wineries have treated my wife and I extremely nicely during our visits.
With all of that out of the way, on the whole, I’ve received Gold Standard customer service from the following wineries:
Cayuse
Rhys
Arcadian
I’m not on many lists/clubs, and I normally buy retail, so my interaction with wineries isn’t nearly as voluminous as many other folks here. Most of the time, I receive good/acceptable customer service from wineries, and I am happy with that.
I have to contribute to the Bedrock praise. Not only do they respond promptly, but the shipments always come without any hassles. I just got an E-mail informing me that the shipment is delayed due to weather. Now, not all producers out there do that. And lets not forget Morgan’s allocation policy. It’s fair and shows respect for the customer.
I also have to give credit to Linne Calodo as well. Great customer service
For a larger winery, Tablas Creek does it right; They always treat me as if they don’t have a huge customer list
Keating
Similar to Brian, Gold Standard means the truly best service I can imagine. Responding to inquiries, completely transactions, and shipping appropriately are all things I expect from both wineries and retailers. I’ve dealt with very few places where I’d say service has significantly exceeded those expectations. In fact, the only winery I can think of is Zepaltas. I can, however, list a ton of places with solid and dependable customer service. I’m curious if that is how many of the posters here are interpreting the question? Or if all of these places listed truly go well beyond what any of us consider reasonable expectations. Does sending a postcard once a year to tell you that you don’t yet have an allocation really qualify as a gold standard of customer service?
I agree with the above definition of “gold standard” completely. The three wineries I listed earlier all have definitely gone above and beyond, most of them well more than once. I didn’t detail, because I’ve mentioned stories before, but to consolidate (not-so) briefly for this thread the most outstanding experiences …
HERMAN STORY: Shipping snafu totally out of their control due to massive confusion/bureaucracy on receiver’s end. (They were trying to send us a case to a hotel, per our request, for an anniversary celebration vacation; which turned into a fiasco of epic proportions by both the hotel and the shipper.) To “make up” for something they didn’t even cause, Herman Story shipped not only that case to us for free to our home, but our entire fall order, which ended up being five cases total, AND threw in an extra magnum free of charge. All on top of spending a great deal of their weekend doing everything humanly possible to get the delivery to us in the first place, including being on the phone with the delivery driver, me and the hotel in a three-way Saturday afternoon phone call where common sense simply could not prevail (hotel kept insisting all shipments must go to loading dock and loading dock was closed on Saturday, but this was second attempt after being refused at loading dock Friday, because delivery was for guest not hotel; impenetrable circular logic ensued). Definitely above and beyond on Herman Story’s part.
BEDROCK: Communication with Morgan, and now Chris, is immediate. Problems, when they occur, are resolved almost immediately, and always in the customer’s favor. One year, their shipping company, for whatever reason, sent out wine to us the Monday before Christmas–meaning wine was in transit almost two weeks all told with holidays–versus its usual 4-5 day journey. One case showed minor cork protrusion. Mike replaced the entire case in the next shipment, even when I said we could wait and see if wine was OK.
This past year, shippers let a bunch of wine go into the polar vortex, even after Bedrock sent out an email saying they’d stopped it. One of my cases didn’t even arrive (damaged in transit), another arrived open and was missing bottles, and the others sat, again, a fairly long time, in VERY cold conditions. Chris and Morgan were, as always, absolutely on top of this offering me replacements, refunds, extra assurances, or whatever it took to make it right IMMEDIATELY. As in, within 30 minutes of my initial contact.
Now, the irony here is that another much-loved winery (heck, I love them, too), had the same issue. Similar sized order (4 cases), exact same timeline (arrived alongside Bedrock; which is why I think of them together), exact same delivery date and conditions even. One case also missing, listed as “damaged in transit/destroyed” by shipping company and not delivered, and others having sat in freezing conditions. Contacted them same time/manner as Bedrock to report, but far greater run around. Days and much back and forth go by “investigating” what can easily be confirmed via tracking numbers given in initial email, with eventual insistence that wine is never left in an unheated warehouse by shipping companies (despite delivery guy telling me that’s EXACTLY where they were). Says wines never ship in pulp, though they were, which heightened my concern (far less insulated). Anyway, I knew the wines MIGHT very well be OK, but with no assurances that if they weren’t I would be made whole for my $1,500+ order (assurance was all I was asking for, besides replacement/refund of the case not delivered), I was told they’d return and refund, but it was also strongly hinted never sell me wine again (which proved true), an offer I accepted even after waiting YEARS to get on this list, because no matter how much I love the juice, I couldn’t take the $$ risk.
By the way, I’m not gonna mention this other winery’s name because they generally have a great reputation and it’s totally possible I just caught the owner on a very bad day for him, as I can’t be the only one who had these shipping issues. Plus, it was my first order with them, unlike Bedrock who I’d been a customer of for years, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, and only posting for the contrast. Also, even though it wasn’t what I would consider “gold standard” service, they certainly didn’t do anything “wrong,” per se, and I was absolutely made whole, so this isn’t really a complaint about that scenario just pointing out how above and beyond Bedrock’s service is.
Which is why, I bought another 4-5 cases from them this fall and will continue to do so for as long they keep making wine we can afford, because I have absolute faith in not only the quality of the product (which was never in question with the other winery either), but also the service I will receive.
RIDGE: I posted a tasting note regarding a case of Lytton Springs we had purchased from a third-party being off, potentially heat damaged after we opened 3-4 bottles (all at one time), all very much wrong, based on prior experiences with this wine and vintage. When I contacted the wine shop, they were way less than helpful and told me to contact the winery. I didn’t really feel it was their problem, but I had posted a tasting note on CT as “flawed” with description, and asked on that forum other users if what I was describing sounded like heat damage to them. Got a PM that someone had forwarded it to Ridge and, indeed, Ridge reached out to me and offered to replace the case with current vintage, no other questions asked or returns required. Because they don’t ship direct to my state, they even waited until we’d be traveling to relatives in a state they did ship to, and immediately made good on the shipment promise. Again, we had never even bought from Ridge direct.
I’d definitely consider all of those “gold standard.”
Btw, Pat, my comment about sending a notice that I don’t have an allocation was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I guess I should have put a wink smiley face at the end of it 
With that said, the wineries that made my list have done something specific that sets them apart in my mind/experience. After having some wine freeze damaged from a Buty shipment, they were responsive and sent me an entire new case of wine as replacement. For Zepaltas, Ryan contacted me after he was reviewing orders and said he missed an order several months back. When I got the shipment, I notified him that I had actually had gotten the bottles. He told me just to keep the half case on him and enjoy. A winemaker reviewing orders and personally managing an order that he thought was mistaken impressed me. Nicora – on top of conducting a really good private tasting – notified me a couple of months later and said that he had forgotten to send me a couple of bottles for club referrals and he sent out two bottles on him. Nick has also managed some incorrect shipments that were my fault because of a change of address. Clos Solene and Tercero have provided a personal touch and accessibility to their wines and buying that I think stands apart. The same goes for Paix Sur Terre, and Ryan Pease puts on an amazing wine tasting to boot. And as I mentioned for Rasa, they give discounts on even their top-of-the-line wines at points during the year that I have rarely seen another winery come close to. And Loring, well their model simply impresses me, and I feel that they do most things just a bit better than others.
k.
Thanks for the clarification Karring ![[oops.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/1/1f129ddad071ffe5db6c99817c3cab666035a70a.gif "oops"){kind=small}
I had a similar type of experience with Ryan Z, though the error was related to bottle size. I had ordered some 375’s but 750’s arrived. He wanted me to keep the larger bottles and send me the 375’s. I thought that was too generous and convinced him not to send them. He also quickly resolved a serious shipping error I’d rather not relate, but was the shipper’s (not Ryan’s) fault.
Pride.
Been a buyer for a long time. Whether it’s a visit to the winery or an order or whatever the case may be, top notch in my book.
I need to add Eric Keating to my personal “above and beyond the call” list. Nicely done, Eric. Thanks!
I was surprised it took so long for SQN to show up in this thread. I consider them to be the gold standard of winery customer service. Postcards twice/year to let me know I’m still on the waiting list? Timely responses during the time I’m on the waiting list? A gracious tone, despite asking some moronic/demanding questions over the years? Free bottles of wine for long-time members? Rosé for a penny? The cynics can write this stuff off but I don’t think there’s an objective leg to stand on.
Unfortunately (or fortunately as a consumer), easy ordering, timely responses to questions regarding orders, updated shipping information, etc. have become the norm. So from that regard there are a lot of wineries that have excellent customer service, but those things are not differentiators. Are there others that exceed the basic expectations? Sanguis sent me a replacement bottle for a wine that I listed as corked on CellarTracker (I never contacted the winery). When I first ordered from Loring I got a really nice hand written note with my order. I got very nice personal thank you emails from Morgan at Bedrock and Mark Aubert during a couple releases. Shafer replaced a fairly old bottle of Hillside Select that was corked, despite the fact that there was nothing to send them for them to verify it. To me it is those kinds of things that make a company stand out, and I’m sure it is not cheap to do. And they don’t even make me “loyal” (for example I don’t buy Loring or Sanguis any more–but to be clear it’s about too few dollars chasing too many wines and not enough storage for even what I do have). But they do stick with me in terms of being a fan of the companies.
Another vote for SQN. They could sell their entire production 10X over and yet they always have excellent customer service whether it is communication or replacing a corked bottle.
George
Cabot - John saw an old post on WB about a corked bottle of Syrah that I opened, and reached out to offer me a replacement. Quality
received a replacement bottle today from Juan at Realm.
Unsolicited, but offered and delivered anyway.
Buy Realm!
One more vote for Dirty and Rowdy, emailed with a minor shipping issue and Hardy responded within 15 minutes from his cell phone! God I hope I love da juice cause this is the kind of winery I like to buy from!