Quinta do Vesuvio's 2003 for sale

[Alex R]

2003 Quinta do Vesuvio's At $47.75
http://www.internetwines.com/gz5012817.html

Just a happy customer etc.

[Roy Hersh]

That's the best price for the best Port, I have seen in a long time. Grab 'em all folks. This is a prolific VP at an unheard of price for Vesuvio!

[Eric Menchen]

I bought a sixer cheaper at auction, but other than that the best price I had seen was around $60/each. I'm also a happy customer of Internet Wine & Spirits.

[Lamont Huxley]

Alex,

Thanks alot for the heads-up. I called them today and found out there were 4 left in stock. 2 of them are now on their way to Brooklyn...

[Lamont Huxley]

I was a bit dubious about ordering from this company after seeing that the bottle was listed as "Graham's Quinta do Vesuvio 2003 Vintage Port", but I called to confirm that it was indeed the Vesuvio and was told they had 4 bottles in stock when I placed my order. I just received an email today telling me that my order was cancelled because the item was out of stock. I called to inquire and they told me that without having the name of the person who confirmed that they had the wine in stock, there was nothing they could do for me. Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed. I don't think I'll look to order from this store again in the future.

[Eric Menchen]

Well that's lame. And they still list it in stock on their web site too.

[Glenn E.]

Well that's lame. And they still list it in stock on their web site too.

I have had issues with Internet Wines & Spirits before, but in my case it was a problem trying to order some rum.

I get the impression (from my dealings with them) that they often list everything that their distributors have on their sell sheets, regardless of whether or not they actually have it in stock. This seems to be a very common practice on the East coast, and while I do not know where IW&S is located it wouldn't surprise me a bit to find out that they're in New Jersey.

They also have a tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear, or to tell you what they think will help them get a sale. When I called them asking about a particular rum that they had listed, they told me that it was no longer made and that their listing was in error. That was only half correct - their listing was an error. As it turns out, the rum is still being made but is no longer sold in the US. IW&S was probably hoping that if they told me it was no longer made that I'd buy one of their lower-quality rums instead. They actually tried to tell me that the distillery had closed! How these stores think they can get away with lying when it is so trivial to unveil their deception is beyond me.

In a related issue, the store in New York that I had my one bad internet Port-buying experience with still to this day lists the 2003 Portal VP for sale even though they do not have it, have never had it, and confused it (repeatedly) with the 2003 Noval that they shipped me instead. I don't complain about that experience too loudly, though, because I ended up with 4 bottles of the 2003 Noval for a total of $60 due to their repeated errors. Yet they still list the Portal on their web site... I've actually been tempted to use my wife's name to order it again just to see what would happen.

In the long run, as long as the store makes up for their error I simply chalk it up to the risks of ordering over the internet and move on. It is disappointing to have a sale canceled out from under you, but it's going to happen occasionally so there's no use getting too upset about it. I lost out on a pair of 1970 Noval Nacionals that way... oh well!

[Lamont Huxley]

Glenn,

I hear you, when ordering over the internet there is always a chance that things won't work out exactly as expected. However, what really irked me was the response from the person I spoke to on the phone after finding out that the order was canceled. When I told him what had happened he took a very rude and incredulous tone with me and told me that he found it hard to believe that anyone at his store would tell me that a wine was in stock when it actually wasn't - and then proceeded to interrogate me about whom I had spoken with. He didn't even offer to double check to make sure that the wine was actually out of stock, he just said "If you received an email that says it's out of stock, then that's definitive." - no apology for the mistake or anything. I've worked in many retail jobs, several of them being wine shops, and I can say from experience that that is never an appropriate way to deal with a customer.

I guess my point is, mistakes inevitably happen, but there are acceptable and unacceptable ways for merchants to deal with them, and in this case I found the response very unacceptable.