quote:

Originally posted by Foghorn:
I picked up some of the '99 for $69 a few months back. Those are the deals I'm looking for.

quote:

Are you guys drunk?

I paid $55. I don't know why that happened.

The problem is when you ask the winery if it is ok to ship the wine at this time and he says yes it is ok the way they ship it, I thought it would be ok. And that would be a NO on the insurance, Mail boxes etc charged us $420 for shipping and did not insure it. The winery packaged the wine an just got our credit card number and gave it to MBE. When I asked about the no insurance Casanova told us that we handled the shipping and that he was not responsible. UPS was going to give us $100 for each case, we said no. Lessons learned. When we travel, we drink the wine there and don't ship any back.

quote:

Originally posted by SUMMITAWJ:
Mail boxes etc charged us $420 for shipping and did not insure it. The winery packaged the wine an just got our credit card number and gave it to MBE.

Mail boxes etc in Italy???

When I was in Italy a few years back (The Euro was about $1.34 at the time), I looked into shipping from Mail Boxes Etc., and I recall the cost was $180/case for 'slow' delivery. I do not recall if if this included insurance.

When I worked directly with the wine merchants the prices ranged from $170 w/ Insurance to as little as $120/case with insurance. When I ordered 10 cases of 2001 Tenuta Nuova, the per case cost was roughly $130 including insurance and the delivery took 4 days to get from Italy to Boston, MA.

So, if wineries are not properly equipped to ship cases, I'd recommend going to the merchants. They are friendly... have slightly higher prices (sometimes) but you save on the shipping.

Again, if anyone ever wants to go in on an order sometime, there is money to be saved in volume.

On a side note, I just drank the 2001 Alte D'Altesino (A bottle I carried back with me). Spectator gave it 88pts. While not a showstopper, it was totally solid with solid smooth fruit up front and a really nice lingering finish. I think they should retaste it. At $25/btl I thought it was a much better value than some of the other Super Tuscans out there.

Best to everyone this holiday season. If anyone needs some direct contacts for shipping over in Montalcino, I'm happy to try and help.

I was in Montalcino last month and was considering shipping a few cases back while I was there but went well over my trip budget (thank you to the weakest US dollar ever) in the week I was there and decided to hold off on the large purchase (brought 6 bottles back though)! I made a few contacts at shops that are willing to ship for $10/bottle which I believe includes insurance. The highest prices for shipping were directly from the wineries in most cases.

Tenuta: I will probably be ready to buy a case or two in January, if you're still interested then, we should talk.