The Auswine Forum

This may be a silly question, but over the christmas period I had a couple of bottles that were faulty .. the biggest dissapointment was a museum released Lindemans St George 1990. However when I contacted Lindemans they said sorry and sent a current vintage of St George, no problem.

However when I contacted another Hunter Valley winery about a faulty wine they said if I popped into the Hunter they would happily replace the wine. Unfortunately the likelihood of me going upto the Hunter at the mo is low, so I asked whether it was possible to send through the replacement by post and the response I got was

"We could but the cost would be almost the same as the bottle and it may not be worth it for you"

From this I assume they thinking I would pay for the postage of the bottle ... is that normal?

The cost of the bottle is around $25-$30.

The winery is fairly small winery

A winery with good customer service would send you a replacement, covering the costs of postage themselves.

Where this gets tricky for me is when the winery asks to see the faulty bottle, which means I have to package and post it to them. They may still supply a replacement bottle at their own shipping expense, but I'm still down the cost of getting the suspect bottle to them in the first place.

What this means to me is that, especially for wines with cork-related problems, if it is less than $30 in value, I don't bother complaining. Perhaps not the best way to go, but there is no small hassle involved in returning dud wine.

pstarr wrote:Where this gets tricky for me is when the winery asks to see the faulty bottle, which means I have to package and post it to them. They may still supply a replacement bottle at their own shipping expense, but I'm still down the cost of getting the suspect bottle to them in the first place.

What this means to me is that, especially for wines with cork-related problems, if it is less than $30 in value, I don't bother complaining. Perhaps not the best way to go, but there is no small hassle involved in returning dud wine.

I usually make the effort for anything that cost me more than $20. I always state I have the bottle with 9x% of contents and the original cork and offer to send it back at their expense. Some accept my offer, most don't want the bottle back, but I always have received the replacement sent at their expense. I've never had a winery ask me to pay postage for the replacement. If wineries use corks they should be prepared for that sort of expense.

From the NSW Department of Fair Trading Web Site.

http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/Consu ... pairs.html

Returning the goods - who is responsible?

For smaller domestic and personal items, it is generally accepted that consumers will return the goods to their place of purchase for a refund. If a customer wants to cancel a contract due to a breach of condition, the customer is entitled to cancel by:

* serving the supplier with a notice in writing signed by the customer giving particulars of the breach; or
* returning the goods to the supplier and giving the supplier either verbally or in writing, particulars of the breach.

Disputes can arise when freight costs are incurred because the item is large, such as household furniture, or where the goods were delivered by post or courier.

Bearing in mind that a consumer has a legal right to cancel a contract and receive a refund if there is a breach of the statutory condition of merchantable quality,consumers should not incur costs for returning goods that are so defective they should not have been sold. If the goods don't work, break down or develop a serious fault, then the trader must put consumers in the position they would have been in if the fault had not occurred.

In these circumstances, consumers are not responsible for any costs for returning goods from the trader to the manufacturer. Traders may have a claim against their supplier for their costs incurred as a result of a faulty product.

Can you return the wine to the retailer you purchased it from? they should replace it for you and then raise a credit note from the winery. If the retailer no longer exists or is to far away ask the winery if they know a retailer in your area you could return it to for a swap and then they (the winery) can replace it thru supplier channels.

on a another point whats at fault the winery or the cork?

Jamie

This a topic that comes up at work (as I work for McWilliam's Mount Pleasant) all the time due to previous bad batches of corks.

Generally if someone returns a bottle of wine (corked or other Winery/supply based problem) or rings with a complaint we will replace, no hesitation, all costs paid by McW.

However this can change in some circumstances such as:

- Strangley high volume of faults of the same wine = this could be a scam...alarm bells ring...we get wine picked up by rep etc
- Complaint not consistent with the product (e.g wine sold was under screwcap and complaint is "corked" ....yes it happens)
- Customer not willing to return the product (even at McW expense)
- Customer gets narky, rude and digs a hole ....yes this can be a very non-business like procedure but from a staff's point of view I really don't feel like helping a customer who rips my head of due to something I can't control.

99.9% of the time we will replace the wine however.

When the complaint/call is received however we always ask for the bottle code (usually on the back of the bottle on the label), the wine name/vintage and the type of cork (each cork has a label on it e.g "A", "CSA", C&S"). This atleast allows us to claim the costs back from the winery to cover the cost of replacement bottles which come out of the cellar door sales budget.

Generally if you have a problem...take the issue up with the retailer you purchased it from (e.g cellar door, bottle shop, restaraunt)...if you have no luck then take it up with a FRIENDLY call to the winery. If you are nice and offer to send the bottle back you WILL have a better experience. Don't act like your the king of the world and you know best...this is the best way to not get what you want....its pretty normal.

Anyway luckily for us all of our wines are now going into screw-cap so replacement is rare. Now the new "fault" trends start....how many people do you now hear say ..."yuk that wine is really Bretty" hahaha

Hmm, tough one to call, getting the bottle back to the producer..Getting the wine back for the winemaker to 'assess' it's corkiness or not, is usually a waste of time. The wine would have been opened, then God knows how far it then travels in all sorts of temperature extremes on ullage, gets shaken in transit, so that by the time the wine actually arrives, it is not just corked, but oxidised so much the cork taint becomes a secondary problem!! Usually, a quick call to the winery (and this assumes the purchase point is distant from where the wine is opened) and a chat to the winemaker (easy to do in a small operation, almost impossible in a big one... ) should be enough to give the winemaker more info to help determine the course of action. My approach is to send 2 replacement bottles-one as a replacement, and one as some form of recompense to the customer for their inconvenience, both in terms of the corked wine, and their time in chasing down a replacement. I've been lucky so far that the replacements havent been corked.....