Our Shipping & Delivery Policy |
I. Delivery
The law requires that you be 21 or older to purchase and accept delivery of wine through our website. At the time of delivery, the common carrier will require the signature of someone who is 21. For this reason, we recommend that you ship to a business address if possible. The purchase price of any wine returned to us for failure to obtain the signature of someone 21 upon delivery will not be refunded.
Delivery Options
You have control over when you receive your wine. We use UPS to ship wine to you. Our default shipping method is standard ground transportation. But you have the choice of selecting two day or overnight shipping to receive your wine earlier. No matter which method you use, we will ensure you are sent the tracking information via email once your order is ready to ship, and help you if you have problems receiving your wine order. Remember, you cannot track your shipment until UPS sends you their email with the tracking information.
Estimated Delivery Time
We want you to receive your wine in good condition as quickly as possible. Shipping time depends on several factors such as distance and weather. Generally, delivery time takes 1-3 days for East coast delivery and 4-6 days for West coast delivery.
To protect your wine, we generally ship on Monday or Tuesday to avoid adding the weekend to the shipping time. However, if you would like your wine shipped within 48 hours of placing the order, please inform us in the comments section of your order, and we will strive to meet your request. And if you have a last minute shipping order or any special requests, please call us at 202-669-6673 to verify that we will be able to accommodate your request. UPS will send you an email informing you of the expected delivery date.
Weather and Hold Policy
We offer real.good.wine. You bought real.good.wine and our goal is that it tastes as good as the day it left our cellar. While we do everything on our end to prevent temperature related damage to your purchase, we cannot control the weather. Extreme heat and cold can damage wine. So, if we hear that the weather in your area is poor, we will let you know. We recommend that, in such cases, you let us hold your shipment until the weather conditions improve.
If we expect the hot or cold weather to last for a while, we may place a “weather hold” on your order. We will give you an estimate of the “weather hold” period before you place your order. If you wish to delay your delivery due to hot/cold weather even if we do not have a weather hold in place, please inform us of the date you would prefer your wine to be shipped in the comments section in the order form. If you want us to deliver your wine now even though we have a weather hold on your order, please inform us in the comments section. We encourage you to use the overnight delivery option if you choose to have your wine delivered during hot/cold weather.
We offer long term holds on purchases for periods of up to four months to avoid extreme weather conditions in your area. If you are interested in a long term hold, please advise us in the comments section at check out. Let us know the month that you want to take delivery and we will ship on the first Monday of that month. The “hold” is free of charge for paid purchases.
Delay in Delivery
There are other reasons your shipment might be delayed. We may get early access to a wine that we can offer you now but we can’t ship it until the wine is made available to us. In those cases, our offer will show the shipping date so that you know when to expect it.
II. Shipping
Shipping Destinations
We can deliver to a residence or a business address. We cannot ship to a post office box. We strongly encourage you to have your order shipped to your weekday day time address, which is usually your business address. This helps ensure that someone 21 or over is there to accept and sign for your delivery.
Unfortunately, several states do not allow wine to be transported across state lines. If we don’t ship to your state, please contact us to see if we can arrange shipment to a suitable address. At a minimum, we do not ship to the following states at this time. If you are unhappy that we cannot ship to your state, we encourage you to let your state legislators know.
Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont
We will be shipping to the following states soon. We’ll announce the dates we start shipping in our emails as well as our Website. Sign up for our emails so that you get the news as soon as possible.
Hawaii, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, West Virginia
Sales Tax
You don’t pay sales taxes unless you are located in Virginia or New Hampshire. However, legislation is underway that may require all wine retailers, local and shippers, to collect sales tax for all states where they sell wine. Please be assured that we will always keep our total purchase cost competitive even when shipping and taxes are considered.
Insurance and shipping costs
All shipments are insured for damage during delivery. Please contact us at service@vegansommelier.com to let us know if you have received damaged bottles of wine. We will work with you to make it right. Please see the “Return” section for details.
The Vegan Sommelier offers a competitive price for the total combined cost of the wine and shipping. Our wine prices are generally discounted 20% or more below the suggested retail price, which compensates for the shipping costs. And if we can get the wines we offer at a lower price, you can expect to pay a lower price either through a greater price discount or lower shipping costs.
Because bottles of wine are heavy and the common carrier company is already headed your way, it is more economical to order big! Some of our customers work with their friends to place a group order and take advantage of the lower case cost.
Packaging
Don’t want to add to your local land fill? We use only recyclable cardboard boxes and biodegradable tape to ship your wine. So, you can dispose of it through your town’s recycle facilities.
Point of Sale
Customers take ownership of wine bought over the Vegan Sommelier (VS) website at the time of purchase and title passes to the buyer at the time of the transaction. This means that, as the owner, the purchaser takes responsibility for the shipping to the purchaser’s destination. By arranging for the shipping of the purchase, VS is only acting on behalf of the purchaser. By using the shipping service provided by VS, the purchaser is representing that purchaser is acting in compliance with all applicable laws concerning the purchase, transportation and delivery of wine. The purchaser further represents that the purchaser has obtained any required permission, paid any required fees, is working through properly licensed intermediaries where required, is legally entitled to take possession of the wine ordered and is legally entitled to take quantities ordered and warrants that purchaser and the person accepting the delivery is 21 years of age or older.