MENIN Buying Op - UPDATE
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2026 11:02 am
Once everyone places their orders on the buying ops, I usually am out of the loop .... UNLESS something does not go according to plan. 
With new producers, these are never easy. With Menin, they struggled to get the back labels approved in the USA, but just when we all thought that had been solved, the IVDP approval was delayed a long time. They wanted one minor change to the label, but between the time they took to let anyone know that was the case, AND the time it took to redo the printing of those labels, gummed up the works. No excuses, it eventually got done and the bottles shipped to the USA and cleared US Customs about the mid-to-end of June. Not optimal for shipping due to temps.
Bad news is that delayed things. Good news, the Ports were all immediately put into VinConnect's temp controlled warehouse. Lisa and Vic were on my tour last week and asked me where the Menin bottles were. So I ws in touch with VinConnect and here is the message I received from them:
So, I will keep an eye on this thread, but you can email or use the live person chat feature on their website, if you would like to get the Ports delivered sooner, rather than later. Or you can wait until the weather is more conducive to shipping if you live in a hot zone like Vegas, LA, Texas, FL etc. where temps are still not cool enough to risk the shipment. Remember the shipping was FREE for ordering a case or more. I realize this time frame has been stretched, but the prices paid were pretty great. I can say we had a tasting on PHT1 with 5x 50 year old Ports in a row (we had 19 of them in total, and I believe 8x 80 year olds during the week ... you shoulda been there!) and the Menin 50 Tawny was the unanimous vote by the entire group and there were some very solid 50s that day!
With new producers, these are never easy. With Menin, they struggled to get the back labels approved in the USA, but just when we all thought that had been solved, the IVDP approval was delayed a long time. They wanted one minor change to the label, but between the time they took to let anyone know that was the case, AND the time it took to redo the printing of those labels, gummed up the works. No excuses, it eventually got done and the bottles shipped to the USA and cleared US Customs about the mid-to-end of June. Not optimal for shipping due to temps.
Bad news is that delayed things. Good news, the Ports were all immediately put into VinConnect's temp controlled warehouse. Lisa and Vic were on my tour last week and asked me where the Menin bottles were. So I ws in touch with VinConnect and here is the message I received from them:
Roy,
Your customers' orders are grouped with ALL of VinConnect's orders pending shipment, and we're monitoring the weather and reaching out to folks by region as we think it makes sense to ship.
That said, any customer can, at any time, request that their order be shipped. Everyone can check the status of their order by going to their account on our website, which hopefully they enabled when they ordered. If not they can always reach out via email to info@vinconnect.com or via the live chat on our website, which is ME not a bot or AI.
And at some point we need to talk about the next one!
So, I will keep an eye on this thread, but you can email or use the live person chat feature on their website, if you would like to get the Ports delivered sooner, rather than later. Or you can wait until the weather is more conducive to shipping if you live in a hot zone like Vegas, LA, Texas, FL etc. where temps are still not cool enough to risk the shipment. Remember the shipping was FREE for ordering a case or more. I realize this time frame has been stretched, but the prices paid were pretty great. I can say we had a tasting on PHT1 with 5x 50 year old Ports in a row (we had 19 of them in total, and I believe 8x 80 year olds during the week ... you shoulda been there!) and the Menin 50 Tawny was the unanimous vote by the entire group and there were some very solid 50s that day!