Can I split cases?
For online purchase, you are welcome to split cases as long as you purchase the minimum number of bottles for that particular wine.
If you would like to buy fewer than the minimum online purchase number, please contact us or send us an email and we may well be fine with that, depending on the number of bottles and the wine in question.
As a general guideline, we are happy to split cases of younger wines as they have a longer drinking window for us to sell the remaining single bottles. Also, if you want three bottles from a case of six, we’re more likely to say ‘yes’ than if you want one half bottle from a case of 24. But there’s absolutely no harm in asking: we say ‘yes’ far more often than we say ‘no’.
For a list of wines available to order online by the bottle, please click here.Can I buy mixed cases?
You are welcome to mix cases as long as you purchase the minimum number of bottles for each wine chosen. As before, if you’d like to build a mixed case below the minimum online purchase number, please drop us a line and we’d be happy to try to accommodate you.
From time to time, we will also create specific discounted mixed case offers to allow our customers to taste a range of wines at lower cost.
These will be published on the mixed case page and often on the home page when they are available.Can I specify a delivery date?
We work closely with our couriers to ensure a smooth delivery service but guaranteeing a specific delivery date and time can be difficult.
In the UK, we can usually manage to let you choose a specific date and give you an expected delivery window on that date but occasionally things do go amiss (especially during petrol shortages).
Each listed wine is marked with our (slightly pessimistic so as not to disappoint) expected delivery timescales but if there is a specific date that you need your order by, please call us to discuss this as we will try our hardest to organise this for you. If we can’t guarantee to make a date, we will be clear with you up front.
As always, please do ask if you have a specific date in mind as we don’t want to disappoint you afterwards.Do you store wine for customers?
We are happy to store your wine for you in one of our environmentally controlled warehouse, either at LCB in Burton-on-Trent, or at EHD in Sunbury, near Heathrow Airport. This facility is referred to as a ‘customer reserve account’.
If you purchase wine from us, we are happy to store your wines for six months for no charge. After that, or if the wine is not bought from us, storage is charged at £1.25 per 9 litre case (12x75cl bottles, 24×37.5cl bottles, 6x150cl bottles etc.), or part thereof, per calendar month (or part thereof).
If you are short of storage at your home (or restaurant) and would like to have your order delivered in instalments, this can be done according to the above storage rules.
Delivery to your specified address after that is as per our normal delivery rates (see below) and deliveries to the same address can be consolidated to save delivery fees.How much do you charge for delivery?
UK shipping is free for all orders over £500 and is a flat rate of £15 (£12.50 + VAT) for all orders under £500, with no surcharge for Highlands, Islands, or Northern Ireland. In bond transfers are charged at the same rate (free over £500 and £12.50+VAT under £500).
We believe that this is the fairest way of charging to our customers.
We set the UK flat delivery rate at the average cost of shipping to all customers from the previous year, which last year was £14.93 (ex VAT), which means that we’re actually taking a small loss on each delivery.
International shipping is charged at cost, which can be calculated for many countries on the shopping basket page or checkout page.
For most of Europe, shipping rates can be automatically calculated at checkout but outside that, the rates are bespoke. If we cannot automate your shipping quote, please contact us directly.
Also remember that all of our pricing is UK duty and VAT paid, so if the wine is shown as available in bond and you wish to either have the goods transferred under bond or wish to export them, please do contact us directly and we may be able to remove the UK government’s taxes from your purchase price.How long will it be before I get my wine?
Since we store wine in multiple warehouses, lead times vary, but all of the wines we sell have delivery notes at the bottom of the wine page giving a conservative estimate of delivery timescales.
One other side-effect of storing wine in multiple warehouses is that sometimes you might unknowingly order wines that are stored in two different warehouses. In such cases, we usually consolidate the wines into a single delivery but we reserve the right to send more than one delivery, especially if we believe that otherwise the delays might become unacceptable. We do try to avoid this though.
Note that even though we never show delivery timescales of under a week, we can occasionally do next day, and, very occasionally, same day deliveries in London and the South East.
It’s always worth asking us to meet a specific deadline: if we say ‘no’, it’s not because we’re not willing to try for you, it’s because we’re not sure that it will be possible to get that particular wine to your particular delivery address in the timescale you’ve asked for.Where is your wine stored?
All of our wine is stored in professional storage facilities. Much of the duty paid stock and stock where no minimum purchase is shown is stored either in our cellars near Birmingham or those near London. In bond stock is stored at various bonded warehouses around the UK, with a very small percentage remaining in European storage.
Are all wines available in bond as well as duty paid?
Most of our wines are available in bond but others already have all UK duty and VAT paid already. Please check each individual wine listing to see whether a wine is available in bond.
If the wine is available in bond and you would like to transfer it under bond or export it, please contact us and we will send you a quote with UK duties and taxes removed.Can I have wines transferred to my professional wine storage rather than my home address?
All wines can be transferred to professional storage units. Please enter their address and add any additional notes (such as account names and numbers) that may be necessary for a swift transfer in the ‘delivery notes’ section of the payment page.
You are always welcome to contact us to discuss delivery and transfers.Are the photographs on the web site photographs of the bottles that I will receive?
The bottle and label images are there to help you find the wines and, in most cases, are not photographs of the exact bottle.
Sometimes we show images of one of the bottles (especially if it’s old or rare); sometimes we show images of a bottle of the same wine from the same vintage; sometimes of the same wine; and always, if we have a picture, of a wine of the same colour made by that producer.May I see images of the exact bottles you would send to me?
If the cost of the wine is high or the bottles venerable, please feel free to ask us for photographs of the wines.
Please note that it can take 2-3 working days to obtain images if we don’t already have them on file.
