Customer reviews of Vignerons d’Exception

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

Dear Sir, after 8 orders placed on our site for a total of 121 bottles, delivered each time within a few days without a hitch, you take up your pen to award us 2*/5 because the carrier made a mistake that you haven't forgiven: he forgot the cartons of your 9th order for three days in a corner of his warehouse (dedicated to wine and therefore in the best storage conditions) before showing up to deliver them to you. We're sorry about this, as we already told you at the time of delivery. We promise to deliver within "a week or so" and this time it took us 8 days to deliver, a time you described as "crazy". In fact, it takes us 2 days to deliver to Paris because we have a direct link every day from Burgundy, but for the rest of France it's slower because the wines are handled in their original cartons (or wooden cases) by humans, not machines, and make stops at regional redeployment centers where small trucks sometimes wait a day or two so as not to go "empty" to a remote location. Hence our one-week lead time. Our national carrier is a wine specialist with warehousing facilities designed to keep wine in good condition during the latency between two trucks. Express carriers" apart from the fact that they don't always insure the bottles, impose special packaging that must be able to fall from 2m high onto automated chains: the wine is first handled "by the bottle" for repackaging in this not very environmentally friendly packaging, it is then violated on automated sorting lines "high speed" and is not always stored in good conditions by general carriers who do not manage the temperature of their warehouses in summer for example.
As well as being the author of the dithyrambic prose on Thursdays, I'm also responsible for wine selection and customer satisfaction (which I regret I can't deliver all over France myself!). I think I have always satisfied you since our first contact in November 2016 (reservations of rare wines, grouping of several orders to benefit from free delivery, etc. I counted 20 email exchanges between us for 9 orders), so I find you quite harsh to only note THE bad experience - which is obviously one too many - without taking into account the previous good ones. I hope that when you uncork a bottle, those first 8 deliveries will come back to you... and that time will diminish the bad experience of this 9th delayed delivery... so that you can then call on our services again, and verify that it was indeed an isolated error. Enjoy your tastings! Sincerely, Tristan Depauw "le patron" ;-)

Dear Sir, thank you for your compliments... As for your "but", you will understand that, as this site presents the wines of highly respected winemakers, wines that I have all personally tasted and selected, it is obvious that I liked them and therefore that my Thursday newsletter, which I sign and assume responsibility for, advantageously presents these wines, with my comments that you describe as "self-indulgent". The submerged part of the iceberg is all the wines tasted and not selected, and therefore not commented on negatively! Finally, on our site, I very rarely include my own comments, and deliberately choose comments from recognized critics, mainly the two major French wine guides and Wide Advocate magazine, to make the information as objective as possible. Thank you for your understanding! Yours truly, Tristan Depauw

Dear Sir, first of all thank you for your confidence, I hope we'll have the opportunity to make up for it on a future delivery... The carrier - who specializes in wine - is supposed to call you beforehand to arrange a delivery slot that suits you, and this is what he does in the vast majority of cases, throughout France... but perhaps a little less so in the PACA region, I must admit. Unfortunately, he didn't keep his promise, and we're going to start investigating immediately to find out why, so as to avoid this mistake happening again in the future. Please accept our apologies once again... and we hope you'll give us another chance. We also hope you enjoy the Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph you received, and that they make you forget the inconvenience of not being called, and the bad behavior of that delivery man. Ah, if only we could get behind them!

Dear Customer, After 7 orders delivered without a hitch, we have indeed missed the delivery of the 8th. Unfortunately, this box of Witches was one you were planning to give to your son-in-law for Christmas, and we're very sorry we didn't deliver it on time. In fact, it was the only Christmas delivery we didn't honor, and we apologize again... When we took your order over the phone, our mistake was to give the carrier your home phone number, not your cell phone number. This was in fact included in the delivery address given in our order confirmation email, in which we suggest our customers validate this address and alert us if any details are missing... The delivery driver tried to deliver to you three times during the week preceding the Christmas weekend (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday), and left three messages on your landline answering machine, which you did not follow up. We should have known that you weren't listening to your messages, and should have passed on your mobile number... What a pity that you didn't alert us until the Saturday of the Christmas weekend to tell us that the delivery hadn't arrived, and that you hadn't received a call from the carrier since our dispatch notice received 10 days earlier! It was only then that we realized that you were only listening to your cell phone messages, which we made the mistake of not communicating to the carrier. We could have done something the day before, but not on Christmas weekend... we couldn't do anything. The box, which was a gift, was therefore delivered on the following Wednesday directly to the person you wished to give it to, and we deleted the landline number from your address so that there would be no more mistakes or messages left in the void... Once again, please accept our apologies, we will not make the same mistake again! Sincerely, Tristan Depauw

Hello Sir, and thank you for your encouragement. Instead of using our website, telephone or email, you used our "paper" order form, and your order took 15 days to arrive in our letterbox... it's a shame that the slowness of La Poste earned us only 3*/5 in your eyes, a mark we're not used to! Fortunately, the wines we wanted were still in stock... and you phoned us. Thank you again for your confidence, Tristan Depauw.