Lay & Wheeler Avis 

Lay and Wheeler provides a remarkably informative, comprehensive service for wine lovers at all levels. I love receiving their assessments of wines that I know well, and I find it exciting to be informed of the relatively unknown fine wines that they search out constantly. My personal advisor is someone that I feel I know well, and trust, although I have still to meet him.

Lay and Wheeler lost a case of Chateau Lafite we'd bought for our son's birth in 1999. After poor communication and no initial offer of compensation, just an offer to pay 'market value", they resolved this. Disappointing experience that should have been resolved sooner but fair play to Issy, the Customer Services Manager, for stepping in.

Ive been a big fan now of L&W for several years now and I’m a member of their Cellar Circle.
The selection of wine available is great including some older vintages (often customer stock is for sale). Service is very personal and delivery is generally within a few days.
I’ve recommended them to friends who have also been really happy.

Placed an order but didn't realise that the wine would not be available until the spring. Lay and Wheeler contacted me to explain this and to see if we still wanted to go ahead. We are not wine experts and asked for assistance on alternative wines. We were contacted by the sales team who gave us options, nothing was too much trouble and this all happened on a bank holiday. We will definitely be ordering from them again, highly recommended.

Tried many times to get in contact with my dedicated account manager and have errors on my account going back to mid year caused by an it error that affected duty charges on in bond withdraws. Nobody picking up the phone. just email addresses.

Something has gone wrong at L&W. I have been a customer for a number of years.

Good stuff. I'm pretty happy with L&W. I have recently gotten in to buying with them and having them store the wine for me. It's a simple system, which I like. I can build up the reserves for a rainy day, and then just pay the tax when I decide to have them shipped. Reasonable cellarage charges.

Placed an order on Friday evening and Monday morning they’re calling me to confirm and arrange delivery.
Given the situation going on with lockdown, very impressed with their customer service and Sam for being so helpful.
Got a feeling I’ll be using L&W a bit more and BBR or Corney & Barrow a little less.

Great company, sourcing great wines.

Been with them now for close on 20 years and in my opinion are the best wine merchant in the UK.

Keep up the good work.

Foreigners beware. I made a purchase from them using my credit card only to be told a day later that I needed to make a bank transfer as they don't take foreign credit cards on first purchase. Although refund was promised(pending still), I lost on FX transaction twice(one on purchase, other on refund). Nothing in FAQ warned about this and why did my credit card charge go through in the first place if it was not allowed?

Problem now resolved.

Good wines and excellent service with your own personal account manager. With the fine wine discovery club Tarka contacts me every 2 months and I give some guidance on what I'd like in my case, Cotes du Rhone on Month, Italian another. Had very very few disappointing wines, although for an average £20 per bottle you should expect that.

Acceptable overall, lack of proper communication.
Ordered a case of wine from them, but for some reason they don't feel comfortable with emails... I received an unnecessary phone call, just to ask me if that was my first order (they should already have known that) and other small details. I specifically asked to send me an email when the case was ready to collect.
No email was received. They only answered when chased, and didn't receive any apology for the miscommunication.
Wine selection is overall good, but it would be nice to receive both a better customer service and an appropriate communication.

L& W Customer Services - excellent in resolving logistic issues etc. can't be faulted.

Where you rank below your peers is on the broking side for your standard 12% commission (one of the highest in the UK) when compared to BI, Farr's, F&W, etc. You generally fail to list any critic reviews, tasting notes (not L&W's own which have very little standing in a global market place) take 1998 Clos d'Ambonnay, Krug at £1,285 a bottle and in this case your own stock there is zero information.

Consider, this a Rolls Royce of Champagne, if I were a Rolls Royce dealership, I would probably loose my contract if I failed to explain anything about the car to potential customers.

There are plenty of other tweeks and improvements I could list which would help to engage the customer with the primary goal of getting them to log on to the site more frequently.

If I win the case of wine then you can have them.

Your rolling ticker showing new wines listed which is in fact is generally untrue given your just regurgitating previously listed stock for sale on rotational basis you can have with my best wishes.

These are choppy waters, just look at the position Berry's finds itself in whilst the family are secure, the business plan is hemorrhaging money.

The revenue generated at Farr's has dropped at an alarming rate.

Don't be a casualty there are many great things about L&W that could be enhanced benefitting the bottom line and re-engaging the inactive customers.

All Good in the Wine Hood

After finding the wine of my choice through Wine Searcher, I couldn't quite believe how easy the process was. Lay & Wheeler came up with the best price, I contacted them through Wine Searcher, I got a response quickly, the quote was the same as listed (not always the case), and the transaction was complete in an hour or two. The best bit is that I could collect the wine from a local Majestic for a much lower delivery cost than I'm used to from other Fine Wine Agents. What's not to like?! This is how it should work.

I have a specific contact in Lay and Wheeler, who contacts me regularly with recommendations tailored to my wine preferences. The handover between contacts when this has become necessary has been without problems.

There needs to be better integration with Majestic on deliveries and discounts. I have had an account with L&W for years but do not want a cellar plan so I do not get discount with Majestic - why????

I use Lay & Wheeler fairly often and find their website easy to use and full of helpful advice. Ordering is simple, storage fees are reasonable and their specific tastings are always fun. Just an enjoyable experience dealing with the company.

The service from Lay and Wheeler has been faultless to date. Although I have only been ordering for a year, the breadth of choice is superb and the recommendations are great.
I particularly enjoy receiving the periodic brochures of wines by region, and have found this the most tempting in choosing wines for my small (but growing) collection.

A few years ago I bought some vintage port en primeur via Majestic -
they were hopeless! Sometime later I complained to a branch manager who explained they now had Lay and Wheeler for "that stuff"!
Their prices are fair, the cellaring seems to excellent with reasonable fees and the website is informative if a bit traditional. They fill me with confidence and most importantly they are pretty strong on fine Italian reds. Customer service is unobtrusive but competent - definitely in my top three of wine merchants!