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Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 11:32 am
by Andy Velebil
Eric Menchen wrote:
Eric Ifune wrote:If anyone no longer wants their order, I'll be happy to purchase them. :mrgreen:
+1
I was thinking the same thing.

Sure it's a slight bummer not to get them earlier. However, stuff like this happens when dealing with government entities and wine labels. If you've never experienced it, or had a winemaker explain it, it can be a major headache. Often over something really trival or something that was ok to use the past years but now is taboo. And there is no getting around these government agencies that regulate it. You're stuck until they say it's ok.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue May 02, 2017 4:30 am
by Al B.
Moses Botbol wrote:
John M. wrote: So a measure of patience is in order and a delay is not surprising, nothing nefarious is going on here. These are fantastic deals and your wine will come.
What will be 10+ months from ordering to delivery is quite a measure of patience IMO.
I think you were a bit harsh Glenn. Moses is not being unreasonable. A normal transaction taking 10 months is unreasonable - but not is unusual in my experience of trying to get bottles from Portugal to the UK and we're a lot closer than you!

Moses - you could get the bottles more quickly, I'm sure. There are (more expensive) temperature controlled shipping services which could move your bottles to you during the summer if you need / want them more quickly.

But I do agree with the observation that the Subscriber's Buying Ops are not usual transactions and perhaps should come with a warning that things can take a long time to get sorted out!

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue May 02, 2017 5:17 am
by Moses Botbol
Al B. wrote: Moses - you could get the bottles more quickly, I'm sure. There are (more expensive) temperature controlled shipping services which could move your bottles to you during the summer if you need / want them more quickly.

But I do agree with the observation that the Subscriber's Buying Ops are not usual transactions and perhaps should come with a warning that things can take a long time to get sorted out!
There was nothing to say this was an En Premier or "Premier Cru" style offer; pay for the wine now and hopefully they'll show up at whenever the importer get it (if they ever get it). There was no wording in the offer that they were not labelled and ready for export, nor were they in the US. Considering that most of the wines are available in the Tri-State area, paying for temperature controlled shipping is not worth it. I would be paying way more for them than if I just bought them at a B&M.

Future offers should be clear with what one is getting involved with. I have ordered previous buying opportunities and the wine was delivered in a normal window.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue May 02, 2017 8:26 am
by jeff t.
Moses;
I completely agree with you.I inquired when I ordered and was expecting a March shipment.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue May 02, 2017 12:23 pm
by Glenn E.
Moses Botbol wrote:There was nothing to say this was an En Premier or "Premier Cru" style offer; pay for the wine now and hopefully they'll show up at whenever the importer get it (if they ever get it). There was no wording in the offer that they were not labelled and ready for export, nor were they in the US.
You are correct. In fact the offer said specifically that all of the wines were already in the US, though since the 60Y White is brand new that wasn't possible at the time the newsletter went out, so Roy just got a little over zealous with the announcement. However, I do think that should be assumed with this type of offer. Roy's doing this for us through back channels, and that has always been apparent.

All I'm getting at here is that FTLOP buying opportunities aren't like ordering from an internet store or buying from your local B&M. Roy's not making any money off of these, and the importers and often the producers are shaving their margins extra-thin in order to give us the best prices possible. Many of the importers and producers Roy works with on these offers are small... and things happen. We've been extremely lucky over the years that they've basically all gone off without a hitch, and I think that gave people unreasonable expectations for what these really are. Now we've had 2 in a row that have encountered difficulty. C'est la vie. The average over the years is still impressive for the shoe string nature of how these work.

Also Moses, no one else can get the prices you get in Boston. You just happen to live in possibly the only place in the US where the Portuguese population is high enough that stores actually carry good selections of Portuguese wines and Ports. So while you might be able to walk into your local B&M and match these prices on some of these wines, none of the rest of us can.
jeff t. wrote:I completely agree with you.I inquired when I ordered and was expecting a March shipment.
Everyone was expecting a March shipment, including Miguel, Roy, and Ayesha. There was an accident on the freeway and now you're going to be a hour late for work. Things happen.
Al B. wrote:I think you were a bit harsh Glenn. Moses is not being unreasonable.
Perhaps you are right, but given that even you admit that it isn't unusual when shipping out of Portugal I don't think I was. Many of Roy's deals include shipping from Portugal, though not all. So even if I was perhaps a bit blunt about it to Moses, if you can't handle some unpredictability with these orders then you probably shouldn't participate in the offers. Roy does his best to ensure that everything goes smoothly, but things happen. If you want the fantastic prices he negotiates, then that's your tradeoff.

And in all seriousness, do we really need another legal disclaimer? *sigh*

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 6:23 pm
by Roy Hersh
I've sat back and read this over recent weeks and understand both the frustration of some and patience of others.

While I can apologize for this taking a lot longer than I had hoped, let's please not exaggerate this to be 10 months. I am all for candor and everything else that "investors" have laid out here publicly. But let's not be intentionally deceptive and say 10 months please. No one has had any skin in this game for even six months at this point, so stop the fake news!

I can promise you that Ayesha is working her heart out on this one. I was with Miguel in Porto two weeks ago. Things happen. None of us could have seen this coming. I am sorry and wish it had gone smoother and we will all learn for next time. I don't mind people speaking their mind. I don't mind legit complaints. I can handle the truth. When I put these deals together, it is with the best of intentions and I have never looked to make a nickel on this and trust me, there have been several of these ops that have sold over $100,000 in a week!

Glenn is correct, when saying that in all the years and all the deals that have come together, only these last two have taken much longer than originally believed. I do this SOLELY to thank those of you that I am able to work these deals for. It kills me that I can't do more for our subscribers in other countries except on v. rare occasions. I don't feel it is fair and honestly, I wish I had more pull so that European countries and Australia could also be taken care of. I am always trying to find excellent buys for you to score Ports that many would be thrilled to try ... and buy.

Maybe I will put more verbiage in the disclaimer, but in reality ... there is never the risk of the wines not being shipped to you. This is nothing like a Premier Cru deal. I put my own reputation on the line here and while I ask folks to deal with the seller, I am always willing to do whatever is humanly possible to speed things up and report the straight up good, bad or the ugly, no matter what.

I will have Ayesha come in here and give you more of an update, that is the best I can promise at the moment.

Respectfully,

Roy

The history of buying cooperatively, based on the....

Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 9:09 pm
by John Trombley
knowledge and connections of a person like Roy, who is willing to make owning and cellaring (and drinking) fine wines that would cost two to three times more at standard retail markups, is nothing new. What always puzzles me is why a man like Roy would be willing to put his knowledge and so forth to work for us for essentially nothing except possible heartaches and at the risk of his reputation if folks are not happy or can't tell the difference between some of your recent scam artists and someone who does what he does for the love of great family-artisanal products being made available for us to both understand and participate in enjoying among ourselves things that we could never, or much less easily, do otherwise.

It requires a certain trust basis to work with someone so altruistic, and if you haven't known Roy for years and known how respected he is for his knowledge in a very difficult segment of this business, you may mistake his efforts for something they are not. We'd all do a little better to recognize up front what the possible delays and so forth that are inherent in this sort of less formal business arrangements, or we simply need to go out to the standard sources and pay the tariff asked by them. But if you have more time than money, and don't mind an adventure or two along the way, this can't help but be of interest to you.

My concern is that in demanding the impossible, and mistaking actual dollars laid out for what economists call opportunity cost, we'll be discouraging the likes of Roy and friends from doing this sort of thing by paying him back for his free work with heartaches. Roy is an indefatagably hard worker, and if something doesn't happen optimally, it's not for want of anything that could be done to improve things!

Roy, perhaps there would be a better way to give people with questions about how a given opportunity is going to have a more direct communication with you, rather than developing pages and pages of everybody's understanding of what is, and what is not, going on (with of course always the availability of the forum discussion as a backup. No intention here of trying to thwart a free exchange of ideas!) But perhaps one informational release might cover a multitude of exchanges of less-informed opinions on some of these tricky subjects.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 3:36 pm
by Douro Vino
Dear FTLOP subscribers,

I appreciate your patience in waiting for these amazing wines. On 4/24, I sent out an update email specifying that the shipment would arrive to the U.S. this month. Well, the container is finally here and will soon arrive to our warehouse. Starting next week we will be contacting you about delivery preferences. As Roy mentioned in the newsletter, some of the wines were in our warehouse, but the fabulous white port was not among them, and it is also a Port that not even my most prestigious retailers have yet. It turned out that approval for this did take more time than anyone would have liked, but that seems to be the reality in dealing with the governments of Portugal and the U.S. to get approvals.

Because you are a valued FTLOP member, you are among the first to enjoy this very old white port. Either way, I know you will all enjoy the wines that you selected, as they are excellent representatives of what Portugal has to offer. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Ayesha

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 11:11 am
by SEAN C.
Has there been any update on shipping from D'ouro Vino? Has anyone actually set up shipping or are the wines still not here?
I was hoping have my order shipped before it got too hot..but it looks like I'm out of luck.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:46 am
by Andy Velebil
Got an email last night saying the wines are in and to be shipped next week.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:01 pm
by John M.
Andy Velebil wrote:Got an email last night saying the wines are in and to be shipped next week.
And its supposed to be very warm---as in hot next week. Just our luck---I did ask for a later ship date--hoping we get a cool week in (like this one).... [beg.gif]

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:29 pm
by Glenn E.
John M. wrote:
Andy Velebil wrote:Got an email last night saying the wines are in and to be shipped next week.
And its supposed to be very warm---as in hot next week. Just our luck---I did ask for a later ship date--hoping we get a cool week in (like this one).... [beg.gif]
You should move to Seattle. Forecast says mid to upper 60s all week next week. ;-)

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:30 am
by Moses Botbol
John M. wrote:
Andy Velebil wrote:Got an email last night saying the wines are in and to be shipped next week.
And its supposed to be very warm---as in hot next week. Just our luck---I did ask for a later ship date--hoping we get a cool week in (like this one).... [beg.gif]
Let's hope the truck driving your wine across the country is air conditioned.... Outside temperature is only part of it this year. The wine will cook on its journey with normal ground shipping

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 5:27 am
by John M.
Glenn E. wrote:
John M. wrote:
Andy Velebil wrote:Got an email last night saying the wines are in and to be shipped next week.
And its supposed to be very warm---as in hot next week. Just our luck---I did ask for a later ship date--hoping we get a cool week in (like this one).... [beg.gif]
You should move to Seattle. Forecast says mid to upper 60s all week next week. ;-)
Does that offer come with lots of BBQ and a seat at those FTLOP tastings?? [dance2.gif]

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:39 am
by Glenn E.
John M. wrote:Does that offer come with lots of BBQ and a seat at those FTLOP tastings?? [dance2.gif]
I can provide the BBQ, and I bet we can get you into our Port Club!

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 9:02 pm
by Glenn E.
My shipment is on the way and due to arrive on Thursday!

Ah, the glories of shipping up the West Coast. Pay for Ground, get 2-day. :-)

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:23 am
by Edward J
Glenn E. wrote:My shipment is on the way and due to arrive on Thursday!

Ah, the glories of shipping up the West Coast. Pay for Ground, get 2-day. :-)
I hope it doesn't stop overnight anywhere in the Central Valley or SF Bay. It was 104 yesterday and Thursday, when if I was expecting delivery, would be on the truck until about 2-3 PM by the time they get to my house, expected temp 106. Nothing even lower than 80 for the next month or so. It is looking more and more like the 60 yo will miss my 60th birthday party, good thing I have backups.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:49 am
by Glenn E.
No, the overnight is in Portland, so I should be okay. :-)

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 4:00 pm
by Eric Ifune
Driving across the desert to pick mine up. Lots of coolers and ice.

Re: The next great subscriber's buying opPORTunity.

Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:40 am
by Moses Botbol
If someone wants to buy my order off me; please PM. Not happy at all the way this offer was promoted or executed.