Aston Lovell ?? ....for buying wine

Adrian Burgess

Adrian Burgess

Location
London
Dear Tom & fellow Wine-pagers, I wanted to ask you all about Aston Lovell Fine Wine Platform. I did a search with the name & there have been a couple of people asking about using them to sell wines on here, with no direct responses. I also did a search of the Purple Pages Forum (JR.com), where there was another similar question (about selling), but nobody seemed to know anything, and Jancis said: 'I’m afraid I don’t know anything about Aston Lovell. Our directory of wine merchants is here. We always welcome recommendations for additions and deletions - except from the merchants themselves.' (unfortunately the link is dead, so I can't see if they have been added since then). They state they are a member of 'Liv-Ex' and present themselves as primarily an investment platform....

However, they have a lot of interesting wines being offered at sometimes very, very competitive prices, from damn fine - but believable - deals, like Masteroberidino, Radici 2016 for £106 for 6... to the surely too-good-to-be-true Vieux Chateau Certan 2016, 3 for £199 ?!? (this could just be a listing error) all + 7.5 % commission.

They ask you to deposit funds with them, then they buy the wines on your behalf (if they are still available) & refund or buy something else you want if they are not. It all looks great, they have an OK / fairly good Trust-pilot score. BUT, I can't find any mention of them on any wine forum, which seems kinda strange.

Has anyone here bought through them or had any experience of dealing with them in any way ? It looks like a great source of wine, lots which are hard to find in the UK, and at prices consistently below that which any merchants are offering... but the lack of any verification - that I can find - from what I know of the online community of wine lovers makes me somewhat sceptical...

I'd be most grateful for any advice or reports of experiences etc

Many thanks, Adrian

(p.s. if the VCC 2016 at £199 +7.5 % for 3 is real, and I get it, I promise to offer a bottle on Vin exchange at cost - so £82 ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
From a very brief look around it certainly seems to be closely connected to Liv-ex, who do keep an eye on this forum, so they may shed some light on this.

I note in their FAQ that they were 'incorporated' in 2006, so 15 years of trading with very few people aware of or talking about them is a bit strange. I haven't heard of them before today, but no doubt someone on the forum will know more.
 
Bryan Collins said:
I've never heard of them either.

They do appear to be linked in to Liv-Ex pricing which isn't cheap, and it's a "proper" website. But...

- Any site offering investment-grade wine at below market price is suspicious to me. You can't buy £10 notes for a fiver. I can't see pricing without registering (which I don't want to do) but if the VCC price you mention is more than a random isolated error I'd be really, really cautious.
- Net assets at last filing were about £20k, down from around £500k the previous year. Big drop. Why?
- In 2011, and again in 2016, compulsory strike-off proceedings were initiated. Both were discontinued so I wouldn't read anything into this necessarily but it's a bit odd.

At the end of the day this doesn't look and smell like a definitive fraud but I'd rather buy from an established merchant.
Click to expand...
Thank you kindly Bryan, esp. for you digging into the company records !

It all doesn't sound that encouraging...

When I signed up, the way the process was framed was very much orientated to investing in wine (e.g. questions about one's experience in investing in different types of markets & investment levels ? ) - this is all quite outwith my interests. However, with the exception of the VCC (which in fairness was an anomaly), none of the wines that caught my eye could really be considered 'investment grade'. So, it doesn't seem to add up on a number of levels, which should be a warning! However, I don't know the wine trade from the inside & I don't want to cast any aspersions -esp. on a public forum - as they may well be good people...If I do proceed, I will exercise extreme caution!
 
I spoke to them about a purchase and I think they are most likely fine but I found their main sales guy to be a little off , flippant and possibly condescending for a four figure sale. They advertise on WS and price was ok but then there was 7.5% added which made it as expensive as others. I then wonder what’s the incentive of trying somebody new or who barely had the time to talk , saying it’s all there in the terms and conditions, if you had read it dear boy.

As others have pointed out they run the model of buying from liv ex and adding 7.5% to the price as their margin which is fine. (I would suggest this is the price and what you should have on winesearcher as your price) .The other elements to their website is up for discussion and it’s possibly a less reliable chain of purchase via every supplier on Liv Ex. Their sign up and purchasing processes also seemed a little backward and undermanned,

Saying all that, if they have a case of wine at a good price you can’t get anywhere else, speak to them and see what you think.
I‘m not ready to rush back, just got a feeling that I didn’t really want to be giving any profit to them. I have many other good merchants who I feel a lot better about.
 
Mike Humphreys said:
I spoke to them about a purchase and I think they are most likely fine but I found their main sales guy to be a little off , flippant and possibly condescending for a four figure sale...
Click to expand...
Thanks for the very useful 'experience report' Mike - the board has definitely come through on this & I feel I have a good enough idea of the sort of company I'd be dealing with :confused: ...to give them a swerve.
 
Mike Humphreys said:
I spoke to them about a purchase and I think they are most likely fine but I found their main sales guy to be a little off , flippant and possibly condescending for a four figure sale. They advertise on WS and price was ok but then there was 7.5% added which made it as expensive as others. I then wonder what’s the incentive of trying somebody new or who barely had the time to talk , saying it’s all there in the terms and conditions, if you had read it dear boy.

As others have pointed out they run the model of buying from liv ex and adding 7.5% to the price as their margin which is fine. (I would suggest this is the price and what you should have on winesearcher as your price) .The other elements to their website is up for discussion and it’s possibly a less reliable chain of purchase via every supplier on Liv Ex. Their sign up and purchasing processes also seemed a little backward and undermanned,

Saying all that, if they have a case of wine at a good price you can’t get anywhere else, speak to them and see what you think.
I‘m not ready to rush back, just got a feeling that I didn’t really want to be giving any profit to them. I have many other good merchants who I feel a lot better about.
Click to expand...
Hang on. They advertise a price, and when they've suckered you in they add 7.5% to the advertised price?

That sounds very dodgy, and I'd be worried that there was more baiting and switching going on before you actually got what you thought you were ordering.

I'll stick to the honest, hardworking independent wine merchants.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top