Winetex
Austin, Texas
Master of Wine
Posts:10796
 | | 12/21/2005 5:04 PM |
| I've heard good and bad experiences withWoodland Hills Wine Company but all of mine have been quite positive.
The good - WHWC has an excellent Italian selection with good values on their pre-orders. Most of my pre-orders have arrived within 4 months of the order. Their shipping prices are quite reasonable. They also carry a full line-up of Billecart-Salmon at reasonable prices which is a big plus for my purchases. A visit showed their inventory well-maintained in a nice cool shop. They are physically located in the San Fernando Valley which can be extremely hot.
The not-so-good - their website is terrible and the online inventory is not updated very frequently.
*No affiliation
Discuss. | | | |
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Pool Boy
Laurl, MD (DC suburb)
Master of Wine
Posts:13711
| | 12/21/2005 6:49 PM |
| That's good to know re: the Italians selection. But honestly, if you're going to have an online presence, make it a good one. There's little point in maintaining a web presence with listed inventory if it is out of date IMO.
I'm more of a web/email guy than a phone guy, so for me, having an accurate online inventory would be kind of important. | |
www.roguefood.com -- www.cellartracker.com | |
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Landshark
Barrel Racker
Posts:1894
| | 12/21/2005 9:51 PM |
| Actually I find their online inventory fairly reliable until they get down to the less than 5 in stock numbers.
This is my number one retail store | | | |
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shaferguy91
Germantown TN
Wine Bottler
Posts:3445
| | 12/21/2005 10:48 PM |
| | Excellent store-good wines and good people. Very dependable. Website is so-so. | | | |
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pizinah
Barrel Filler
Posts:1313
| | 12/22/2005 1:39 AM |
| | Overall I've had nothing but good experiences. Nice salespeople, large selection, usually very competitive prices. As others have noted, their web site is somewhat rudimentary and nowhere close to real-time, and I have found that their inventory system in general is fairly weak. I buy a fair amount from them though, one of my top four or five retailers. | | | |
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TBird
Park Slope, Brooklyn
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5219
| | 12/22/2005 4:53 PM |
| bring back fredman!  ii hope he's having a great time in oregon.  | | | |
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GATC
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2420
| | 12/22/2005 10:28 PM |
| | I've had 2 not so great experiences with them that appear to be caused by their inventory system. They are nice enough and try their best to fix the problems. As long as they confirm that they got your order and that they have the wines (or secured the wines), then you should be okay. | | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Destemmer
Posts:77
| | 12/23/2005 12:24 AM |
| | It's a good store with knowledgable staff. I could find certain good deals, but overall their prices are okay (not bad, not great). Their online inventory system is not that accurate, though. I live about 20 minutes away from WHWC, and once I saw some wines that I've been hunting for on their website. Unfortunately, once I was at the store, they said the wines were sold out long ago (but still 'In Stock' on their website). Vice versa, I saw 6 or 8 bottles of a wine, which their website said only 1 was available (a blessing for me in this circumstance). | | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Sorter
Posts:267
| | 12/23/2005 2:03 AM |
| | The good news: they probably have the biggest selection of red burgs in the LA area and at reasaonble prices. | | | |
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Wineaux
New Orleans, LA
Barrel Filler
Posts:1414
| | 12/23/2005 2:23 AM |
| | One of my first tier wine retailers, especially for Burgs. | | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Destemmer
Posts:77
| | 12/23/2005 4:49 AM |
| | I'm not into Burgundies yet, and glad to know that WHWC is a good source! | | | |
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Winetex
Austin, Texas
Master of Wine
Posts:10796
| | 11/16/2006 2:35 PM |
| Bumping up for additions
*********************
This store is one of my first tier stores for purchasing: Champagnes, Italian wines (Piedmont)
Their pricing is reasonable, although not rock bottom with no case discounts. My pre-arrivals have promptly arrived. All of the wines I've received from them have been in great condition and their shipping department is very good. What's not to like?? | | | |
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Winetex
Austin, Texas
Master of Wine
Posts:10796
| | 01/19/2008 1:48 PM |
| Woodland Hills Wine Company has a new and improved website. I played around with it a bit and was impressed by all of the sorting and search capabilities.Â
Their old website was very rudimentary and this should be a huge improvement for them. One question is about the inventory system and whether it will be more frequently updated.
********************************
From their email announcement:
- State-of-the-art search and navigation
- "Smart" keyword searches which can recognize misspellings and related terms
- Improved Advanced Search capabilities with expanded search criteria
- Dynamic navigation, allowing the user to narrow assortment listings by any number of relevant variables such as price,
vintage, bottle size, rating, etc.
- Featured
wine categories of interest (such as New Offerings, Best Buys, Top
Sellers, Staff Picks, Clearance Bin, etc.) for easy reference
- Improved wine and spirits categorization for more effective browsing
- Significantly enhanced content, including timely wine scores and reviews
- Printer-friendly views of inventory listings (with or without notes/reviews)
- "Email to friend" capability from item detail pages
- Integrated shipping estimator for more accurate shipping charges at time of order
- Email alert sign-ups integrated with customer accounts
- Gift cards now available online
- RSS feeds for timely inventory updates
- Newly developed customer service guide including Frequently Asked Questions
- My
Account section for storing personal information, including billing and
shipping address information, as well as email/newsletter preferences
- Order history, including order status and tracking numbers (coming soon!)
- News blog (coming soon!)
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ChillyWino
Barrel Racker
Posts:1701
| | 01/19/2008 3:53 PM |
| | Winetex, thanks for bringing this up to the top. The new page looks great. I'm sure I'll take it for a test drive soon. | | | |
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jaimetown
DC area
Wine Labeler
Posts:3503
| | 01/26/2008 11:17 AM |
| | I thought I had a bead on two bottles of 1995 Salon @$175 per but alas the inventory bug got me. First time this has happened with WHWC - bummer! | | | |
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