For The Love Of Port

I know many of us have bought Port from them recently. While I am not one to run scared, this is worth noting so you can make up your mind on how to proceed.

For me I won't be buying anything that isn't already in stock and they can ship right away.

Seven disgruntled customers have filed lawsuits against Premier Cru, a high-end wine store on University Avenue in Berkeley, contending that the store purchased thousands of bottles of expensive French wine on their behalf, worth around $3 million, but never delivered it.

All of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits – many of whom live in Asia – say they paid Premier Cru to buy them “futures” of French Bordeaux (wine that is still aging in barrels and not bottled), but they have yet to see the wine. Some of the customers said they have been waiting years for their wine. Whenever they call the store to complain, they hear a litany of excuses, they said.,....

The owner of Premier Cru, John E. Fox, said many of the disputes are the result of new customers not understanding the length of time it takes to deliver futures. However, he did admit that Premier Cru sometimes has cash-flow problems, making it difficult at times to pay suppliers as well as the customers demanding refunds.

To address this, Fox and a partner have put the store at 1011 University Ave. up for sale. Gordon Commercial is offering the property, made up of three parcels and three buildings, on the market for $7.5 million.

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/10/29/ ... m-of-wine/

Very interesting. I previously had called them about the delivery dates on several different bottles. They had no idea when they were shipping but you had to pay up front to get the pre-order price. Looks like it's time to go in a pick up those last couple of items I was looking for there.

Waiting for futures to come in is much different than the vendor having cash flow problems.

"The owner of Premier Cru, John E. Fox, said many of the disputes are the result of new customers not understanding the length of time it takes to deliver futures" What a bunch of BS that is. Their customers are quite aware of how futures work...

Personally, I don't think I will ever buy futures again, but not because of the delivery wait.

Oh...so they're spending the escrow to buy your futures. That's a bad recipe for a business and bound to fail eventually.

Premier cru is holding 10 bottles for me;Since I live in Florida and the 15 day forecast forecasts no highs below 83-89 in the shade I am hesitant to ship in this heat.How worried should I be?
As far as I know everything I ordered was on their special sales and should have been in stock.Would appreciate any helpful suggestions as to what I should do at this point.

Thanks for any input.

jeff t. wrote:Premier cru is holding 10 bottles for me;Since I live in Florida and the 15 day forecast forecasts no highs below 83-89 in the shade I am hesitant to ship in this heat.How worried should I be?
As far as I know everything I ordered was on their special sales and should have been in stock.Would appreciate any helpful suggestions as to what I should do at this point.

Thanks for any input.

Feel free to ship to me, though I can't guarantee how many bottles might be lost to thirsty folks receiving the boxes...

In all seriousness though, if you're really worried to the point where you'd like the bottles shipped out and held someplace else until winter, and you're happy to pay for the second round of shipping, I'd be happy to store them for you until Dec or Jan or whenever it gets less hot in FL.

Personally, I avoid shipping in the heat as much as humanly possible, as that last truck getting the boxes to you can be out abusing your boxes for a while, plus the final distribution centers (at least in the couple cities I've lived in) aren't cooled or aren't cooled to the point where it's good for your wine.


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jeff t. wrote:Premier cru is holding 10 bottles for me;Since I live in Florida and the 15 day forecast forecasts no highs below 83-89 in the shade I am hesitant to ship in this heat.How worried should I be?
As far as I know everything I ordered was on their special sales and should have been in stock.Would appreciate any helpful suggestions as to what I should do at this point.

Thanks for any input.

Maybe ship 2-day and you should be ok. Though shipping would be a bit more.

jeff t. wrote:Premier cru is holding 10 bottles for me;Since I live in Florida and the 15 day forecast forecasts no highs below 83-89 in the shade I am hesitant to ship in this heat.How worried should I be?
As far as I know everything I ordered was on their special sales and should have been in stock.Would appreciate any helpful suggestions as to what I should do at this point.

Thanks for any input.

If it was an in-stock item, I would not worry about it. They "should've" fulfilled the order right away and just put aside for you. That is how a normal business would work and Premier Cru has to run "normal" procedures for BAU stuff of the whole thing wouldn't work.

Call and ask them if your items are ready to ship right now. Not sure when I would ship to FL, but you know better on that one.

A bunch of off-topic ramblings.

In some states, the retailer must be able to pay with cash in hand or certified check the day the wine changes hands, IL remember. Sometimes I think this applies to futures orders as well, even though the wine hasn't been delivered. In the state where Premier Cru does business, does anyone know what happens to the $$ paid for futures? Is there some sort of escrow account where the money has to be deposited?

On another subject, some friends of mine were excited about the extra-low futures prices offered by a local wine shop, to the extent that they ordered several tens of thousands of dollars each of Bordeaux classed-growths. This was in Michigan, which at the time had no laws about futures. You guessed it--the little cash that was left was used mostly for rehab costs for the owner, who smoked up the money. This was a highly sobering experience for many of us, as you may have guessed. Sometimes I wonder whether those who purchase futures have actually taken all costs and potential risks into account?

Another question--does a policy like Lloyds cover losses such as this? Seems unlikely.

John Trombley wrote:A bunch of off-topic ramblings.

In some states, the retailer must be able to pay with cash in hand or certified check the day the wine changes hands, IL remember. Sometimes I think this applies to futures orders as well, even though the wine hasn't been delivered. In the state where Premier Cru does business, does anyone know what happens to the $$ paid for futures? Is there some sort of escrow account where the money has to be deposited?

On another subject, some friends of mine were excited about the extra-low futures prices offered by a local wine shop, to the extent that they ordered several tens of thousands of dollars each of Bordeaux classed-growths. This was in Michigan, which at the time had no laws about futures. You guessed it--the little cash that was left was used mostly for rehab costs for the owner, who smoked up the money. This was a highly sobering experience for many of us, as you may have guessed. Sometimes I wonder whether those who purchase futures have actually taken all costs and potential risks into account?

Another question--does a policy like Lloyds cover losses such as this? Seems unlikely.

To my knowledge California does not. You may have to file a claim with your credit card company who should reverse the charges depending on how long ago the charge was. The bigger issue is if they declare bankruptcy and a creditor places a lien on the assests. It appears, from reading another thread, that anything paid out or sold within 90 days of that lien can be pulled back. For example, if you say cancel my futures order and mail me a check for $3,000 and they do that, then 20 days later file for BK, the lien holders can force you to return the $3,000 back to them and you are out the money. The odds someone would go after a bunch of individual people who bought $300-600 worth of wine within that window is highly unlikely as the costs to do that outweigh the paltry sum they would get back.

I am in no way saying they are about to go bankrupt, just rehashing possible scenarios I've read from attorney's on other wine forum.

Hmmm, this is really interesting timing. I called Premier Cru on Oct. 24th to ask that they ship out the colheita ports I purchased from them over the summer. They told me that they wouldn't be able to get everything together in time for the shipping window on Oct. 27th but that they could ship out the following Tuesday (Nov. 2nd). Nov 2nd came and went without any shipping update from them, so I finally called them back on Friday, Nov 6th and they said there was a "mix-up" and that the wines would be shipped on Tuesday Nov 10th. Tonight I just came across this thread. Yikes! I'll be really soured on wine buying if I get shorted on my order and no refund.

Andy, I also want to put out a major "thank you" to you for taking the time to post a warning for all of us. I remember this summer how some people were already voicing concerns with wine futures ordered from Premier Cru...and I remember thinking, "well that sucks for people who ordered futures from Premier Cru...but wait, are they having a sale on Colheita white port, well then I'd better give P.C. some of my money immediately." I guess the lure of inexpensive wine can make idiots out of most of us. I'm going to try to remember to calculate and factor in the value of my peace-of-mind before I impulsively pull the trigger next time.

Lindsay E. wrote:Hmmm, this is really interesting timing. I called Premier Cru on Oct. 24th to ask that they ship out the colheita ports I purchased from them over the summer. They told me that they wouldn't be able to get everything together in time for the shipping window on Oct. 27th but that they could ship out the following Tuesday (Nov. 2nd). Nov 2nd came and went without any shipping update from them, so I finally called them back on Friday, Nov 6th and they said there was a "mix-up" and that the wines would be shipped on Tuesday Nov 10th. Tonight I just came across this thread. Yikes! I'll be really soured on wine buying if I get shorted on my order and no refund.

So far I've now gotten delivered all my wines I've bought from them. I've got nothing left outstanding now. I've had great service from them as well. I do hope this is just a temporary blip and all gets back on track for them. They are a good store with good people in my dealings with them.

Lindsay E. wrote:Hmmm, this is really interesting timing. I called Premier Cru on Oct. 24th to ask that they ship out the colheita ports I purchased from them over the summer. They told me that they wouldn't be able to get everything together in time for the shipping window on Oct. 27th but that they could ship out the following Tuesday (Nov. 2nd). Nov 2nd came and went without any shipping update from them, so I finally called them back on Friday, Nov 6th and they said there was a "mix-up" and that the wines would be shipped on Tuesday Nov 10th. Tonight I just came across this thread. Yikes! I'll be really soured on wine buying if I get shorted on my order and no refund.

I think this was just an honest mistake. I called them about the same time (a week later, as I recall) and was told that they didn't have an available shipping window until Monday the 9th. I received a shipping notice via email yesterday, so my 3 cases are on the way.

Though... the shipping notice from Premier Cru says it weighs 115 lbs!!! (The UPS notice itself says merely 39 lbs... which isn't correct either!)

Glenn E. wrote:Though... the shipping notice from Premier Cru says it weighs 115 lbs!!! (The UPS notice itself says merely 39 lbs... which isn't correct either!)

115 total for three cases sounds about right, with one at 39, the others slightly less.

Eric Menchen wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:Though... the shipping notice from Premier Cru says it weighs 115 lbs!!! (The UPS notice itself says merely 39 lbs... which isn't correct either!)

115 total for three cases sounds about right, with one at 39, the others slightly less.

I'll have to weigh them when the arrive. For some reason 115 lbs sounded to high to me, but I suppose that could be close. Shipping weights generally seem to be overestimated by a bit to me anyway.

But my 22 lb wine suitcase weighs around 42 lbs with 8 bottles in it, so that'd be around 30 lbs for 12 bottles. Plus packing, etc, and rounding up a bit I suppose 39 lbs could be one case.

I thought a case of wine is around 35 lbs?

Moses Botbol wrote:I thought a case of wine is around 35 lbs?

Give or take, yes. Glass weight can vary widely. Definitely between 30-40lbs for twelve 750s though.


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Bradley Bogdan wrote:

Moses Botbol wrote:I thought a case of wine is around 35 lbs?

Give or take, yes. Glass weight can vary widely. Definitely between 30-40lbs for twelve 750s though.


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Yup, I usually round up to 40 lbs to be on the safe side and for ease of math

Glad i revisited this thread. I logged into my account at PC and discovered that I somehow forgot that I bought some 2011 Dow "Pre-Arrival" almost two years ago that had never shipped. They looked into it and said they would fulfill my order when the next shipment of Dow arrived in early Jan. Holding my breath.... LOL

Haven't had any problems at all with things that were in stock. Just re-iterating the issue with Pre-Arrival stuff.