So yesterday we were expecting a three-case FedEx wine delivery from Wine.com. I'm doing a South African wine tasting and there are very few around town so I had to go to the internet. We changed our plans for the day so that we'd be at home to receive it, but slipped out at 10 a.m. to see a friend's new Road Trek. Safe because we never get deliveries until after 2:00, and usually closer to 5:00. Got home at noon and found the tag on the door. SHIT.
So, though starving because no lunch or breakfast yet, I grabbed the door tag and jumped into the car and went to sit by the guard gate to wait and catch the Fed Ex truck as he left the neighborhood. After an hour of having my heart jump every time I heard the rattle of a diesel engine (sure are a lot in my neighborhood, had NO idea), he finally came.
But there were only two, not three, cases. 31 bottles ordered, only 15 delivered*. And then I got home and found yet ANOTHER FedEx doortag on the front door. WTH? The other case? Or we'd missed another delivery from, maybe, an unmarked private carrier? Does FedEx even do that?
Went into investigation mode and discovered that the first tag had actually been for a delivery on Friday I wasn't expecting at all. The second door tag was from the driver I stopped, who only coincidentally was already in the neighborhood.
So where was my third case? I called Wine.com's Customer Care # on the packing slip. It didn't even ring, just went straight to "we can't take your call at the moment, please call back." So I called back. Lather, rinse, repeat: five times.
*A little back story: I'd ordered these wines 10 days ago. But only Friday, nine days after I ordered them and two days after they had loaded the rest of the wine on the FedEx truck, did Wine.com get around to notifying me that the Rust-en-Vrede merlot I'd ordered was no longer available. So I was already pretty furious over that, because how do I replace that, and now I had just 15 bottles of 31 needed and no confidence that the remainder of the order was complete.
So I went online to their website only to find out that Customer Care is a weekday-only operation. Really? You're a 24/7 e-tailer but problem-fixers are only available M-F? Neither the receipt sent me for the order not the packing lists included this annoying detail. Just a phone number that's useless on Saturdays and Sundays.
There is someone available on live chat, however, to help you with your order so some poor girl got an earfull. She was able to assure me that all three cases shipped, but not explain where the third case went. I told her I had planned to order more wine but now was reluctant because I could no longer believe that their acceptance of my order meant they would fill it or even advise me in a timely manner if they couldn't. Then, on my behalf she "reached out" to FedEx for clues and said I would get delivery on Tuesday.
Well, I also got an email from FedEx claiming that, but Number 1, was that "Yes we know where it is and we'll deliver it Tuesday" or was it a best-guess kind of thing meaning "we have no clue where it is but we're confident that in the next 24 hours we'll find it and we'll most likely get it to you by Tues because even if we don't find it until Monday we can get anything anywhere in 24 hours if we have to"? And #2, I won't be here Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday...it had to be Monday or else, even if they had to airfreight it or buy it its own taxi--I didn't care. Just get it here Monday.
So I called FedEx and found out: it was the latter. So I had to file a claim so they could put a tracer on it. Someone would call back. Wine.com could and should have done that, but didn't.
All of this had taken three hours and I don't know how many years off my life. I was pretty ballistic, so to calm down, even though it was only 4:00, we decided to park ourselves in the patio sun and open:
2013 Halyard BdB, California
I bought a case and a half of this about four years ago and had believed we'd finished them all at least two years ago. Not so, Bucky; just found half a dozen in the cellar. Uh oh. But no worries, the wine is maturing nicely. Very pale yellow, with fresh young flavors at the outset, it got more leathery in the glass and was overall a fine drink.
While we were sunning, FedEx called back with the news that Box No. 3 had left Oregon about an hour before and would definitely be delivered Monday.
At which point my day got back on track and the evening proceeded as planned with a turkey & green olive taco dinner. With those we had:
2010 Pax Griffin's (or is it Griffins') Lair Syrah, California
Good wine. Big and a little stern, very tarry, concentrated black fruits, some fennel and ham. Enjoyed it very much but that said, I'd appreciate more secondary nuances of the type we had on the '04 Pax syrah we drank about two years ago, so for my tastes not quite ready yet. I'll wait on my remaining two bottles.