Customer reviews of Vignerons d’Exception

Hello Sir, thank you for your objective and constructive comments, and sorry for the inconvenience our logistics system imposes: full boxes and daytime delivery outside weekends. Here are a few explanations of my choices, which I'm obviously reviewing to improve our services: 1. non-mixing: the wines we sell are mostly well-known vins de garde, which our customers buy to age and taste from time to time - it would be a shame to have only one! That's why we've chosen to offer only original cartons/cases, which is of course also less expensive and enables us to offer the best prices, without making a loss (many competitors lose a lot of money by offering very expensive services free of charge, so much the better for customers in the short term... but will these colleagues last long? societe.com is a good tool). Our prices would be different if we had 1 carton of each of our 900 cuvées open for "à la carte" blending, and had to pay handlers to create blended cartons after buying a new one and throwing away the one from the winemaker (not great for the planet). We now offer a dozen or so "house" blends, for those who wish to discover them, but no more... You're right, it's a service we need to make more widespread, which we'll do little by little, as our business grows and we're able to devote more resources to it. 2. Specialized carriers who only deliver during the day: in the past, we have tested non-specialized carriers who deliver on Saturdays and also to relay points. There was a lot of breakage, despite compulsory repackaging in special cartons designed for mechanized sorting lines (the carton must be able to fall 2 meters without breaking - what respect for wine?), and the wines could remain several days in an overheated store... with potentially catastrophic results for bottles costing hundreds of euros that we can't even replace, because they're so rare! Aware that not delivering to a relay point is not an acceptable solution, we'll soon be implementing this system, as soon as we've convinced our specialized carrier to adapt his IT system... but we'll make sure to communicate carefully about the risk of poor conservation of the wines! We're making slow progress and improving our services, but we'll be sure to do so as our resources increase, depending on our healthy growth, because we want to still be around in 10 years' time to offer the fine bottles that are currently ageing in our cellars! Thank you again for your understanding. Tristan Depauw company founder.

Dear Sir, we're very sorry that your July delivery didn't go smoothly, and we'd like to offer you our sincere apologies. Our carrier, Schenker, which specializes in wine transport, has a "small" partner in Savoie and the latter, although quite flexible the rest of the year, must have been overwhelmed due to the vacations of his delivery men... we are sorry that our logistics department (located in Chalon, where our wines are stored) was unable to make up for the communication shortcomings of the local delivery man... and we hope that you will give us another chance... very good tasting in the meantime! Tristan Depauw

Dear Sir, I'm sorry that one of the few recipients of Chateau Chalon 2010 from Domaine Macle is not satisfied, and please accept our apologies. A few explanations: we're sorry that the carrier behaved badly, and would have liked to solve your problem if you had let us know. Don't hesitate next time! Schenker specializes in wine, and in 25 years of home deliveries, it's the carrier we've had the fewest problems with, by far. We're launching an immediate investigation to find out what went wrong with the carrier, and we'll do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. After all, things can go wrong, especially in the summer, when unmotivated temps sometimes do a poor job of looking after our customers. As far as packaging is concerned, most of our customers appreciate receiving the estate's original packaging, and all our logistics and traceability are based on this principle. Despite our comments, the winery continues to use low-strength cardboard, perhaps on the assumption that clavelins are strong... and the specific shape of the clavelin prevents us from repackaging them in stronger neutral cardboard. We'll pass on your comment to the winery in the hope that they'll invest a little more in their boxes... Once again, our apologies for this delivery, which fell far short of our quality standards, and we hope that you will renew your trust in us and check that this was just an isolated malfunction. Best regards, Tristan Depauw

Dear Sir, First of all, thank you for your comments which, even if negative, help us to progress. You registered on our site in 2014, and we never convinced you with our catalogs and our ever more complete range. A few weeks ago, you ordered for the first time and took advantage of an unprecedented promotion: progressive quantity discounts on two non-rare wines: the Cuilleron syrah at -21% (€7.90 instead of €10, per 4 cartons) and the domaine du mortier "fût de chêne" viré clessé at -25% (at €11.25 instead of €15, per 5 cartons).
No, the fact that we paid less was not due to "tank bottlings", it was simply a question of non-rare wines, with recurrent success, which allow us once a year to give our customers very good deals on everyday wines, our regular customers being quite often frustrated by the too limited quantities of our winemakers' superior cuvées. We're sorry you didn't like Yves Cuilleron's Syrah. You rated it 1*/5 and commented "mediocre". On the other hand, you didn't bother to rate the Viré Clessé (which you consider "satisfactory" in this review of our site in general). Admittedly, this Syrah is not the wine of the century, but many of our customers are "afficionados" of it and enjoy it on a daily basis, precisely for its lightness and simplicity, without expecting too much complexity. We're sorry to say you won't be one of them. We sell several thousand bottles of this cuvée every year, and have never had any negative feedback, only the occasional disappointment from customers who were used to the estate's superior cuvées, we admit. Having said that, tastes and colors are not up for discussion, and you can of course, like all our customers who don't like a wine, return it to us (71 rue mermet, 69160 tassin) and we'll refund you for the wines received as soon as we receive them. Regarding the condition of the boxes when they arrived at your home in Quiberon three days after they left our Burgundy cellars (they left the day after we received your check in the mail), we're sorry that they weren't visually correct. We don't understand your remark: "no packaging". We only sell whole cartons purchased directly from the estates, and simply deliver these cartons. In fact, some winegrowers use flimsy cartons, and when we suggest they use sturdier ones, they usually point out that it's expensive and that as long as the bottle isn't damaged, that's the main thing... and sometimes add that they reserve the sturdier cartons (and sometimes wooden crates) for the "superior" vintages of their production. Of course, the cartons are always a little "shaken up" during transport, whether to France or the other side of the world, and everyone knows that it's enough to wait two or three days for the wines to rest for the quality of the bottles to be irreproachable.
Once again, please accept our apologies for having failed to satisfy you, both in terms of the quality of the Syrah (we have of course passed on your comment to the winemaker, who is very open to compliments but also to criticism), and the condition of the boxes when they arrived. Yours sincerely, Tristan Depauw