Yellow Line

This is not a wine blog. But I really love good wine and I’m mad at the discovery of new bottles, and that’s why this is the second post about wine in less than a month.

To tell the whole truth I won’t speak about the (note: landing page in Italian) marvellous Lambrusco that I found last year in a wine show in Mantua but I’m going to tell you about an experience.

The Gran Rosso del Vicariato is a strong, sparkling wine produced by the Cantina Sociale di Quistello (Quistello is a really small municipality near Mantua) and, in my humble opinion, is the very best Lambrusco I had the chance to taste.

As I was saying I discovered this wine back in December 2008 and bought just some bottles to give it a try; I seldom travel to Mantua (even if it’s my home-city) and just to meet with parents and relatives (or do some shopping, as my wife Barbara would add ) so I have really no time to travel 40Km just to buy some (albeit very good) wine.

While at home, on Monday, a tried a look at the Cantina website for infos about their ecommerce.
What I found was an old-fashioned (1997?) website with no info about ecommerce chance or even an email to address orders.

I chose the old way and give them a call, just to ask where I could have bought their wines in Milan, with arising doubts about having any chance to find those bottle outside Quistello.

I was wrong. Definitely. Eh eh.

I, with no delay at all, talked to a very polite girl who told me that, not only I can find their wines in some wine shops in Milan, they have a truck travelling to Milan each week (!!) and that I could have placed an order by phone and pay by bank transfer.

I was stuck at my Mac, facing their old-fashioned web site, thinking of the high quality of the service they were offering (the minimum order is 36 bottles, or something like 60 euros – expedition expenses included !!).

I’m not talking about Champagne, I’m talking about one of the cheapest wines in Italy (but – if you lived in Mantua – that is THE wine). And talking to a girl that was saying that having those bottles delivered to my home, or at ANY other address in Milan was soooo simple.

That was Monday. This morning at 10 I had the bottles in my office. Delivered by a guy of the Cantina Sociale and his Iveco Daily: he takes care not to ruin the boxes or – argh – to break the bottles.

So, what are the key points of this experience?

• I wasn’t forced to look (or wait) for informations; they were delivered to me immediately and in a polite way;
• I have a big problem solved (we deliver whenever you want and we can bring the boxes to the cellar, if you like);
• I didn’t have to wait (the boxes were delivered a couple of days after my order);
• The product status after the deliver is as-if-you’ve-bought-it-from-the-shop: perfect! (even the boxes looks perfect from the outside);
• Communication with the vendor was status of the art: immediate, transparent, complete.

This has been a great lesson to me. I usually move away from companies without a good web site. I’m happy to have picked up the phone, this time.