Post-Brexit wine delivery from EU

Interesting, Andy, as I'm awaiting a shipment ordered a couple of weeks ago, from which i received a UPS notification for delivery 7th May... follow up with Vinissimus said in fact that it had left Spain, and is now sat waiting for them to pay duties, after which it will go to UPS...or perhaps now a new courier...who knows?
 
Andy Leslie said:
Vinissimus delivery arrived this week without any unexpected extras being applied.

They are now clearly paying U.K. duty and VAT, so my reluctance to use them has pretty much gone. The service is taking longer than expected to deliver - in part they are upfront about this, saying there is more admin to do at their end. I had to have some correspondence with them about my order as it was c.6 weeks with no sign. Instead of a bland corporate emollient reply I received a charmingly exasperated rant from Eva saying they have now changed courier as their UPS contract had been “catastrophic“ - shipments being rejected by UPS for no apparent reason. She says they are back on track for c.2 weeks with the new courier.
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I've never found anything from Vinissimus that I couldn't buy cheaper from here in the UK.

What have I missed? :)
 
I ordered some wine (only a 3-bottles-case) in April from F&R, and now it has been 14 weeks so I asked what happened, they replied:

"....I have been informed that we are still waiting for customs clearance, this is taking longer at the moment due to new processes implemented post-Brexit. Once the clearance has been given, we then need to complete further paperwork and book it into our warehouse, the case should be ready for delivery in around September."

Is it me being too impatient or it's actually a very late delivery? I bought these three bottles for drinking, not storing. I would still need to wait another two to three months for that case to be booked into my L&W account so it will be for Christmas!
 
I bought a single bottle from Crump at the beginning of March knowing there was 'up to 12 weeks' for delivery. Still waiting. Only get apology emails when I ask them for an update. I believe it is now booked in to LCB and they have a meeting on Monday to discuss getting mine, and others, pushed up the order for processing. Its a joke. I have also ordered four different lots from auctions in Europe. One took three weeks and I had to pay a total of £36 in customs charges. Original cost of wine £32 plus 9% commission & delivery. The other three, separately, took one week no additional charges.
 
An order shipped from Italy on the 14th is still in customs, for a bout a week it was somewhere between Italy and the UK with nobody knowing where it is.
Parcelforce say they have no idea when it will leave customs

Sad to say I wont be ordering direct from the continent in the foreseeable future
 
Peta Radford said:
An order shipped from Italy on the 14th is still in customs, for a bout a week it was somewhere between Italy and the UK with nobody knowing where it is.
Parcelforce say they have no idea when it will leave customs

Sad to say I wont be ordering direct from the continent in the foreseeable future
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You have to chose your parcel service well. I'd only use FedEx as they seem to be able to deliver within 2-3 days (same as before Brexit) everyone else seems totally random!
 
Interesting though It’s mostly down to the vendor who they use though.
I will enquire in the future who they are using. UPS are utterly shocking in the customer service, good to here that FedEx are better.
 
Peta Radford said:
Interesting though It’s mostly down to the vendor who they use though.
I will enquire in the future who they are using. UPS are utterly shocking in the customer service, good to here that FedEx are better.
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I’ve started asking vendors to arrange for collection abs then get FedEx to pick it up. Often much easier. But yes UPS are shockingly bad!
 
2 orders in the last few months: one from Vinissimus that took forever (apparently around the time they were changing couriers, though when probed that was not given as a reason) - but it did arrive intact and with no apparent ill effects in the bottles opened in delivery. The other from Decantalo, no undue delays compared to pre-Covid times. So, as mentioned elsewhere, the big guns probably seem better equipped to deal with shenanigans, broadly...
 
I don’t suppose anyone has experience sending from the EU to the U.K.?
I need to send a few bottles as a gift.

It seems FedEx might be logical to get it to the recipient without them getting a VAT invoice?
 
Russell Faulkner said:
I don’t suppose anyone has experience sending from the EU to the U.K.?
I need to send a few bottles as a gift.

It seems FedEx might be logical to get it to the recipient without them getting a VAT invoice?
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If you don't want the recipient to see the cost of the bottle or pay the duty you will need to send anything with incoterms DDP (delivered duty paid). The duty and import VAT will then be charged to you. Plus a fee for the privilege of course.
I don't know how couriers handle this if you don't have an account though.
 
Richard Lodeman said:
If you don't want the recipient to see the cost of the bottle or pay the duty you will need to send anything with incoterms DDP (delivered duty paid). The duty and import VAT will then be charged to you. Plus a fee for the privilege of course.
I don't know how couriers handle this if you don't have an account though.
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I apologise in case I missed a basic feature of having done brexit and hope that someone here will educate me on this. The question for me is - If a friend or a shop or a chateau sends a parcel containing say 12 or 48 bottles of wine from France or Italy all French duty and tax paid. Does one has to still pay British duty and vat again? thereby paying duty twice? and if so, is there an allowance as one would expect; like first 2 or 3 bottles are not subject to British taxes as considered a maximum personal allowance as for when one arrived at an airport from anywhere?
 
Hisham Kalam said:
I apologise in case I missed a basic feature of having done brexit and hope that someone here will educate me on this. The question for me is - If a friend or a shop or a chateau sends a parcel containing say 12 or 48 bottles of wine from France or Italy all French duty and tax paid. Does one has to still pay British duty and vat again? thereby paying duty twice? and if so, is there an allowance as one would expect; like first 2 or 3 bottles are not subject to British taxes as considered a maximum personal allowance as for when one arrived at an airport from anywhere?
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Yes you would and no there are no allowances. Better to go in person abs pick them up :)
 
Alex Lake said:
Can one buy wine to have sent from EU to UK in bond (obvs. to a bonded warehouse) in which case no charges apply until you remove them from bond?
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If you do, then no ordinary courier can transport them. Only certain licensed shippers will be allowed to do so and those mostly handle bulk only or a minimum of one pallet. A pallet takes, I think 50 cases. But you can ship one case if you like but will be charges same as a pallet of 50
 
Hisham Kalam said:
If you do, then no ordinary courier can transport them. Only certain licensed shippers will be allowed to do so and those mostly handle bulk only or a minimum of one pallet. A pallet takes, I think 50 cases. But you can ship one case if you like but will be charges same as a pallet of 50
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Maybe an opportunity for someone like LCB to have some facility in EU and move customer cases in bulk together - even if just once/quarter wouldn't make much difference ;-)
 
Will Devize said:
The DPD man has just dropped off a mixed parcel I ordered from Decantalo at the end of last week. No additional fees, presumably no border issues etc. Remarkable work given the current climate.
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I think Decantalo is one of the organisations that's worked it out (I suspect UK sales is a large part of their business). However, tax/duty demands can arrive later! Would make a good scam, actually.
 
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