Château Pichon Longueville: 124 bottles of various vintages not delivered by 1855
The good news is that the tally of wines undelivered by 1855 has not greatly increased since the end of February. It now stands at 6037 bottles (503 cases) for an estimated purchase value (excluding duty and sales tax) of 292,583€.
1855 has made some deliveries of the outstanding wines. At the end of February two considerably relieved customers each received the case of 2007 Carruades de Lafite that should have arrived last June. It seems very likely that these two cases, which were ordered as en primeur in-bond purchases but arrived duty-paid, have been purchased after the wines have been released onto the market. When 1855 offered them en primeur in July 2008 they were priced at 480€ a case. A case now costs from 4426€. A further four cases of 2007 Carruades de Lafite are known to be outstanding.
Of course this is scant comfort to someone who contacted me this week still awaiting their six bottles of 2002 Mouton-Rothschild and one bottle of 2002 Ausone. They ordered six bottles – only five have arrived so far.
It will also be scant comfort to know that 1855's credit rating with creditsafe (www.creditsafe.fr) is now 19/100 putting them just into debt status.
Claire Morre (clmorre@fevad.com), who is responsible for membership of La Fevad (La fédération du e-commerce et de la vente à distance), has received a number of detailed complaints from frustrated and disappointed customers of 1855. I'm sure that she will be happy to receive further complaints, which will assist La Fevad in deciding whether 1855's provisional membership should be made permanent next year.
