JJ Buckley Fine Wines

This was hands down the worst wine purchasing experience ever. Horrible customer service. Never answered any emails inquiring where my order was. Nothing works in the account holders account, except for the part where they store your credit card information – that seems to work just fine. I don’t know who these folks are but I will never buy wine from them again because both experiences were terrible… at best. They sure know how to take your money, but don’t seem to be too concerned about following through with shipping your order or providing any customer service. This feels like a shotty garage operation.

Service from a wine shop is important. I recently ordered some champagne from JJ Buckley through their website that was labeled Brut. Unfortunately, I received Demi Sec which is VERY sweet.
Upon informing JJB, they offered to send a return shipper and upon receipt they said they’d credit my credit card. Within 24 hours of receipt they refunded my credit card.

Horrible service. Pending arrival of 2 different wines have been delayed for months and they refuse to refund money on wine that has not even been delivered. They wanted to charge a 15% restocking fee and then they offered store credit for 100% of the value. Both of them, unacceptable answers. Awful response when things don’t go as planned, and with future deliveries, that seems to happen often at JJ Buckley.
With so many companies nationwide with great inventory, low shipping costs and great service, do yourself a favor and steer clear from this horrible company.

Chalk another one up for an undelivered pending arrival. I placed an order over 100 days ago for a ’76 Château d’Yaqqium and after several calls, speaking with Corey, I neither have the wine nor a refund. This is beyond unacceptable. I am waiting on a call back for a resolution and will update this review if there ever is one…
UPDATE: After being told that a refund would incur a 15% restocking fee, despite the bottle having never been in stock, and that maybe they would allow for a 5% fee because of credit card charges, and that the bottle was just sitting in a cargo container at the port of Oakland and should have been unloaded weeks ago, I was finally able to get a full refund (the only reason I’ve given them two stars instead of one). Personally, when dealing with a 40 year old bottle I would never have accepted the wine had I know it had been shipped in such a way. Don’t trust this place.

I was looking for a specific wine (Shafer Relentless), which is sold out at the winery and can be hard to find with the older releases. I emailed JJ Buckley Fine Wines and within minutes I received a call from Corey and he stated that he had one bottle left that he would like to hold for me. He made it very easy, we completed the transaction through the phone and he emailed me my sales receipt and additional information. He even gave me a better quote then what was stated online. NOT ONLY that but they will hold your item (s) for 2 weeks, without purchase! If you made a purchase they will hold the item (s) up to 6 months! AMAZING! The pick-​up/​delivery options are also great. I can pick up my item or have it shipped to me. I also browsed their website and they sure have an amazing selection. Too bad I am located about 2 hours away from them, but when I am in Oakland, I sure will visit and get more wines! Such reliable people! GREAT and QUICK services!

I am very surprised at some of the less than stellar reviews here for JJ Buckley. I have placed 27 orders (mostly Bordeaux) from this outfit over the years, including some wines that are pre-​arrival, and have never been disappointed. Prices, especially the Private Client offers, are often the lowest prices available anywhere in the U.S. per Wine Searcher Pro. My point of contact, Chris Greene, has always been very responsive to my emails. I can’t think of how their service could have been any better.

Very good marketing, very inconsistent customer service. Orders are often not delivered, even though they were paid in advance. Unreliable.

Inventory always inaccurate. How about updating on wine searcher and your website?
²⁴⁄₇ service? I tried calling on the weekend and all that could be done was «taking a message.» What’s the effing point of having someone there if they can’t provide customer service?
Never do business with them again. Joke.

I have ordered thousands of dollars worth of wine from JJ Buckley over the past several years. I have always ordered through Jeff Loo. He has never – repeat, never – steered me toward a bottle that I didn’t like. On the contrary, he typically recommends something that I would not have even known about without his recommendation. He has introduced me to some remarkable wines over the years. On top of that, the prices are quite good. Finally, he is super-​responsive and a very nice guy. Highly recommended!

We needed something truly special for my vinophile father-in-law’s 75^th birthday, and JJ Buckley knocked it out of the park. We decided to buy a bottle of wine from the year of his birth. 1940 vintages are especially rare (being the year France was invaded by Hitler’s army), but JJ Buckley had a beautiful 1940 Bordeaux that arrived just in time for the party in terrific condition.
Our sommelier, Chris, was very responsive and delivered exactly as promised. I’m looking forward to using JJ Buckley again.

I find JJ Buckley quite hit or miss. I used to order a lot more from them but this year stopped once my previous account manager (Ryan Moses) was promoted — wasn’t particular happy with the new one, that combined with the selection of wines fell off a cliff!
The website is mostly a pain — over Christmas/​New Years I believe their online system was being upgraded and for a LONG time you couldn’t place orders, manage credit card etc (very strange time of the year to do it).
The other annoyance is the whole «private client» system of having to email/​call your account manager. I like just adding stuff to my cart — knowing im getting a great price and hitting order to be honest — not have to feel like I have to reach out everytime.
Overall not bad — never had any real problems with them, I just choose other sources now that are easier to manage and have a much wider selection.

Do Not buy wine from this company!!! They do not stand behind their word. My cousin ordered a case of wine as a gift and was told if we didn’t like it we would be able to exchange the case and choose another type of wine. Well, that did not happen! One of their reps said no one in their company would have said that, but he would check and get back to me. He never called so I called him and he said they wouldn’t exchange it. Very rude! There are plenty of fine wine stores who honor their word, so I suggest to never shop at JJ Buckley!!!

I’ve dealt with JJ Buckley since 2009 and while they’ve always been in the semi-​pro league (buggy websites, lack of secure online payment, frequent errors, long delays on futures deliveries, unresponsive sales reps with poor communication skills), their service is getting worse. Most recently, they stopped sending invoices for the wines I bought, and my rep simply stopped responding to orders and other e-​mails.
Their pricing — especially on WineCommune — has been what kept me shopping with them, but they no longer sell wines on WineCommune and JJB’s offers are not as good as they used to be.
Their latest «winter clearance sale» is smelling a lot like deceptive sales practices. Advertised as savings «up to 80% off», the list of wines provided to the «private clients» are all discounted by 35% — and the «regular price» is often higher than their actual pre-​sale price. If you go online, you will see wines with amazing discounts, but you can’t buy them because their (newly updated) system prevents you from putting them in your cart. I tried doing this yesterday (holiday) and again today, and finally called their 800-​number. I was told that due to the high volume, their website was a couple of hours behind and that the wines were sold. That was just BS, and it makes me wonder whether these wines were ever for sale at those prices at all. I checked a few in the private client list and they were listed with a much higher price (the 35% off).
Anyway, one star for the occasional great deal. For the rest, you’ll do better elsewhere.

I would not even give this company 1 star if that is an option. I bought more than $ 900 worth of wine from JJ Buckley in Nov, 2012 for which I was charged promptly. I had asked them to store my wine in their cellar for a year and and when I was ready to get it shipped in Oct 2013, I was told that my wine was not available and they would issue a refund. It has been almost 2 months now and I still have not received my refund. Their customer service is horrible and does not respond to emails or phone calls. I have tried escalating the issue to their executives but have not heard back from them either. I am filing a complaint against them with BBB, FTC etc.
Stay away from this company if you do not want to loose your money. Their are many other wine stores and websites that provide much better service.

Here’s one from a seller, not a buyer. Deciding that I have so much good wine that to drink it all before I get too old — or it gets too old — am selling off a lot. Sold about 50 bottles of great Italian classics including Sassicaia, Solaia, and Ornellias as well as high 90s rated Brunellos. Contact and the whole follow up by Chris Nielsen at JJBuckley who is their buyer was flawless. Fair price, excellent means of getting it to them, and the check came within the time promised. You can trust these guys.

Ordered from JJ Buckley online and had a ridiculously bad experience. After spending 30 min selecting 6 bottles of wines, entering my ship address (in CA), and then billing info upon clicking Submit Order I received a notice that they do not ship to my state. I knew that they did in fact ship to CA, but figured something must be broke.
I moved on and decided to buy elsewhere. But then a few hours later I get an invoice email from JJ Buckley that 1 of my bottles was shipping. Sent an email to ask what was happening and received no response. Then I received another different invoice which only listed «Ship Cost for Pack Slip» as the only item which cost $ 16.00. I then emailed again to ask that anything ordered would just be cancelled, which luckily they agreed to do, 4 days after attempting the order.
The actual store may be nice (never been), but I’d avoid for online orders. All I wanted was a few bottles of wine, but instead got a headache of emails and phone calls to correct their system’s errors.

Definitely have an issue with computer systems for out-​of-​state buyers… I ordered 2 cases of wine about 2 years ago, received an email early on that it was on order I called a few times to check and 6 months or so after the order was told it was not available (an Italian Red).
Meanwhile, after checking my spam file on email one day, I discovered that my credit card was being charged for storage of the wine for the prior 14 months, so i called and requested delivery saying I was surprised they had it… they said they would ship it. After 2 months waiting, I called back and another person said that the wine was never in stock! They agreed to refund all the back charges for «storage» of the non-​existent inventory.
The capstone is I just received an email this week saying my «order» was declined due to out of date credit card: Yep, they started charging again for «storage» 6 months ago and wanted payment for that «order» !

I am SO HAPPY I found these guys. A couple years ago, I tried a 1975 Riesling at a wine bar in SF and fell in love with it. When I went back to try and buy a few bottles of it, they no longer had it and didn’t know how I could get ahold of more. So for the last 2 years I’ve been searching high & low for it. Finally I did find a bottle on
— JJ Buckley’s site, which is kind of like eBay for winos. I damn near filled my pants, YAY SO HAPPY!!! Payment was easy online; they’ll even hold your wine for you for quite some time if you need to wait to pick it up (shipping is also an option). Not that I was going to wait any longer to get my grubby paws on the Divine Bottle of Heaven’s Nectar Incarnate. My hubby went to pick it up for me and reported back that their warehouse is the kind of thing dreams are made of. I’ll definitely be doing more business here for sure.

Being an novice wine lover, I was referred to this wine source by a good friend who heard about them through another friend, so I checked out the website and… geez I’ll never do that again! What a waste of my time, this wine retailer just doesn’t have it together. I had a question so I called their 800 number — the number rings at least 10 times before you get thrown into their awful call tree. a person finally answered and to my surprise transferred me right away without even telling me where I was going. I got transferred into some accounting voice message-​WTF! So I hung up and dialed back, I had a simple pricing question to ask and didn’t think it would be such a hassle — next time I am just walking down to the ol’ Coit Liquors at the end of my block for some vino. I recommend you do the same in your neighborhood.
So I called back and endured the same crap — the ringing 10 times and then FINALLY a live person — I told the person on the other end what happen but they really didn’t seem to know why or for that matter have any sincere care, why would they ?? It probably happens all the time to many poor wine souls just needing some help and advice.
I had a question about the wines listed on their website that had no title to them but pricing only. The person that I got was absolutely no help — I think I even heard them drooling on the other end — it was that silent, they told me that they would be back with an answer and they put me on hold, then that’s when it happened — I heard the dial tone — the person on the other end either didn’t know what the HOLD button was or better yet — they hung up on me! I was considering calling them back but then I calmed myself down and figured out that I better not since I had just got a good corkscrewing and didn’t need another! Please don’t hurt yourself like I did — their website isn’t consumer friendly and any better!
To all you wine geeks, lovers and snobs… You’ve been warned!

**Review 293 and I’m happy to have a GREAT customer service review in the mix on the road to 300**
5 stars for OUTSTANDING customer service!!!
Chuck Hayward and David Ryan could not have been more helpful with my wine shipping needs.
I needed to get a bottle of wine shipped as a gift to Chicago asap. Well, since shipping liquor to Illinois is not the easiest, Chuck and David were ever so kind to give the info I needed to set up a UPS account and they would take care of the shipping for me.
After setting up my UPS account I passed the info along to Chuck and received an email from him in a little over an hour with my tracking number. Now that is service!
Since it is a gift, JJ’s also offers gift wrapping and a card (for $ 10). After I placed my order the first time I left something off the card. I sent an email to customer service and received a response from David, who was kind enough to update the card for me.
I knew what wine I wanted for this purchase so I didn’t browse around much, as they had what I wanted and for a good price. But I took some time now to browse and they have great selections for great prices. Their auction is pretty cool and they also offer the option to pick up your wine from their location instead of shipping it which is totally cool if you live up in the North Bay.
With the Customer Service being such top notch I will totally buy from JJ again.