Where’s my wine?

I bought a box of wine at a bottle store in Palapye.

When I opened it and drank some, it smelled bad. I took it back to the bottle store and they said I could have taken back the wine from the glasses and the person who was helping me said they don’t drink so they don’t know how it should smell. I had only drunk 2 small wine glasses, about half I think.

They said they couldn’t do anything. They just said how are they were going to take it back when it was half full. I told them I was a regular customer who bought 2 boxes every week, the same wine. I knew how it smelled and tasted. They kept on saying it was just half.

What can I do?

I know drinking alcohol is not compulsory but you’d think someone who worked in a bottle store would know the difference in smell between good wine and wine that’s spoiled, don’t you? Even if they can’t tell the difference, surely there must be someone there who can check it for you?

I contacted the bottle store and they weren’t very helpful. They kept on saying that you had consumed more of the wine than they thought was reasonable. They told me that you “drinked all the wine in a box only one glass was left”. They then told me, “I manage to spoke with the supplier, they asked me to talk to you to contact them so that they can explain more about this issue”.

Here’s an important lesson. When you have a problem, the only people you need to contact are the people you paid. If they say you need to speak to someone else, such as the supplier in this situation, you can politely say No. You didn’t buy the wine from their supplier, you bought it from the bottle store so it’s the store’s job to come up with a solution. It really is that simple.

I explained this to the bottle store manager but they found it difficult to understand. Then something surprising happened. The supplier called me. They were very understanding and very sorry that your wine was bad. They said that of course they would replace it but also explained that their understanding of the situation was exactly the same as mine. All it would need was for the store to ask nicely, return the bad box of wine to them and they’d give them a replacement to give to their customer.

I’ll try again with the bottle store manager. Let’s hope they understand now?