Lay & Wheeler Reviews 97

Excellent range of world wines in all price ranges, with great customer service. Expert wine advisors with a friendly, personal service. Cellaring services, reliable deliveries and brokerage options.
Wouldn't go anywhere else!

There are not many brokers where you can buy single bottles, from bond, at such good prices. So much flexibility, and I was particularly impressed with the delivery process too.

great range, excellent customer service, one star docked because pricing is not always competitive.

Lay&Wheeler has a wide selection of wine especially Bordeaux Grand Crus, best price on the market for singular bottles and best customer service. I do recommend signing up to cellar circle to gain access to a fine wine advisor and free delivery!!! I have spent quite a hefty amount of money with them cuz they are amazing!

Nearly didn't order due to some of the negative reviews below, so thought I should share my experience as it was excellent.

Ordered 15:00 Thursday 3 bottles of "Sold by client" wines duty paid for delivery. All items arrived with me 4 days later 09:15 Monday morning.

The prices were the best I could source the wine for.

Very happy customer and will be ordering again.

Lay and Wheeler are exemplary when it comes to excellent customer service. Always helpful with advice and last minute changes to orders. My experience of their “Cellar Circle” is overwhelmingly positive and I highly recommend it.

great advice from knowledgable and helpful expert

Lay & Wheeler score highly on multiple fronts:
* One of the biggest selections of wines
* Probably the most user friendly website of all major merchants
* Consistently cheaper than the majors

My wine advisor - Ms Kelly is also extremely proactive and always recommending very interesting wines for me to try.

Great customer support. Arrived in good time. Nicely packaged, giving a feeling of quality

Client experience was exceptional as was the service. I was introduced a year or so ago and haven’t looked back.

Great client support and exclusive wines. Competitive wine storage solution and really fun tasting events and private dinners with some of the top wine houses globally.

Lay and Wheeler's excellent selection of high quality wine coupled with speedy home delivery made my dinner party a huge success. My friends loved the wine and the evening was a huge success.....thanks to L&W!

Logistics seem totally broken. Called off c.£10K of wine and requested - verbally and in writing - a single pallet delivery. Got 2 deliveries with the first via courtier and cases opened and repackaged bottles. The second was a pallet - no warning as to delivery date, had to chase to be told “tomorrow”. First I knew of time was driver at my door. Pallet left on pavement and took quite some effort for it to be moved to my front door. Incomplete delivery note so impossible to check the order. More full cases split and repackaged, a Beaucastel case where the bottom fell off on lifting etc. These things can happen but the inability of L&W to resolve the problems is, for me, unforgivable. Seems to be an organisation in total disarray and very far from the premium wine merchant it purports to be. I’ve waited over 2 weeks from delivery to write this review but patience only stretches so far. I’ve closed my account as a consequence.

I worked for this company.
I worked 05:45 till 17:00 only had one break a day was always the first of my team in I also worked one handed because of a fractured arm I came in at weekends and did everything I was asked to do without question.
They then sacked me for having a chest infection.
This is a company that is ungrateful to it's staff and treats them like dirt.
Don't use this company.

I have been a loyal customer of Lay & Wheeler since 2002 and have seen many changes.
However after recent experiences I now regard the company to be incompetent and untrustworthy.

Lay & Wheeler have recently moved to using their own warehouse after using London City Bond (LCB) for many years. They continue to tell customers there is no difference in service between LCB and their own new warehouse.

This is a deliberate lie. Lay & Wheeler have not been clear that their new warehouse is not a full customs warehouse, it is only an excise bonded one.
This means that anyone who imports wine from abroad outside of the EU, has to pay Duty and VAT before the wine can be accepted and entered into customers reserves - this greatly de-values investment grade wine.

I fail to understand why Lay & Wheeler proceeded with their warehouse move before ensuring the new warehouse was fully bonded.

Lost bottles, wrong items delivered, endless warehouse logistics problems and a no responses from reserves/warehouse team.
I would advise people to be cautious about using L&W until it has resolved its extensive logistics issues.
I have a lot of sympathy for the very friendly customer service team who also seem to not be able to get answers from the logistics side of the business.

Great selection and website... with TERRIBLE customer service.

A bit galling to be charged £15 for delivery when ordering 100's pounds worth of wine but ok, delivery was quick so no massive problem.

However 1 of the wines sent was the wrong one (same producer but wrong colour), no big deal and must happen sometimes. I informed them of the mix up and was met with a response that they needed to look into this with their goods out team and would get back to me. Had to chase a week later, and was met with more pushback and then notified that a replacement wouldn't be dispatched for another 10 days at least.

Still had to send more emails to repeatedly confirm that I wanted the bottle I had already paid for (despite them suggesting a refund instead).

The customer service team were also completely unapologetic about the mix up or the subsequent delay, and seemed much more concerned with collecting the bottle they sent in error (heaven forbid they comp a £20 bottle to make up for the mistake!).

In the end it took 3+ weeks and 6 emails to get a simple mix up remedied with them sending 2 separate drivers - 1 to collect the bottle sent in error and another to deliver the one that I had ordered. Not great and a real shame as I would have definitely been a repeat customer.

Great selection of excellent wines and a good price. Website was easy to use and order from. Delivery was prompt (via DHL). My only gripe is that after spending several hundreds of £s on wine I get hit with a £15 delivery charge. Other than that 1st Class experience & I will be using them again.

2019 Bordeaux vintage and orders still not completed . Much as I like them offering by single btls but if they cant fulfil their obligations of delivering it's better to buy 6 from some other merchants. A pity I placed orders for the 2020 vintage too without knowing that I would have such problems with my 2019. So never again