Porthos is the name of the fun loving, wine drinking musketeer from Alexandre Dumas’ novel, The Three Musketeers. Porthos Wine Ventures was founded by three wine lovers now dedicated to seizing the finest undiscovered small production “boutique” wines in Napa and Sonoma and rescuing them for your cellar! Today, the Porthos team samples over 5,000 wines annually and recommends the highest scoring 1% to our thirsty audience of avid wine collectors.
Our mission is to build long term, personal relationships with our clients by providing…
Porthos members place the greatest value on our ability to recommend and source new wines that they will personally enjoy! To ensure you only receive wines guaranteed to thrill, we invest in customizing our recommendations based upon your purchasing history and individual feedback.
At Porthos, we're committed to providing you “insider” information about the best new up-and-coming wines before they are discovered by the wine critics and collector crowds!
Porthos was established in June, 2000 in Sausalito, California by Hal Oates and his business partner Nick Moult. Porthos originally started as a newsletter for co-founder Hal Oates' thirsty friends and family in Texas looking for hard-to-find California wines and has since grown to become the #1 "wine personal shopper" service in California. Since the original clients of Porthos were all friends and family, our team established a highly personalized customer service attitude which we’re proud to maintain today with our extended “family” of fellow wine lovers. While many of our colleagues in the wine world love to pontificate about what wines they love, our purpose is to help you find the wines you already love and then introduce you to new wines according to your individual tastes!
If you're not happy with a purchase or one of Porthos’ recommendations, we'll do what it takes to make you happy. But we ask our customers to acknowledge that wine is a living thing, easily bruised, damaged, or killed in a variety of ways. All wine sold by us is maintained at optimum conditions.
We consider wine to be out of our control once it has been successfully delivered and you've had a reasonable time to sample it. We cannot be responsible for improper storage (storing on top of your refrigerator, in your car, next to your oven, for example).
Know your palate: Older wines (ten years or more) may differ from their characteristics on release - and still be great wines. If you purchase older wines, be patient and allow your mind - and the wine - to open.
We cannot accept returns for sound wines that do not coincide with personal tastes.
In general, Porthos will make every effort to resolve any wine issues to your satisfaction.
By submitting an order to Porthos Wine Ventures, Inc. you are also submitting that you are 21 years of age and legally able to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages. Wines may be delivered to persons of 21 years of age or older only. You will be asked to provide positive ID by the shipper or carrier. Porthos is not responsible for the return of shipments due to lack of positive ID, and return shipping charges are your responsibility. All wine is sold in the State of California, and the title passes to the buyer in California. PORTHOS makes no representation to the legal rights of anyone to ship or import wine into any state outside of California. By placing an order with us, you are stating to us that you are in compliance with your local laws governing alcoholic beverages.
We promise to protect your privacy and will not share any of the information we collect from you with any third party. Questions or concerns? Contact us.
Due to interstate shipping regulations that remain in a few states, Porthos cannot ship wine to all 50 states. Thankfully, these laws are changing rapidly, but if you need wine shipped to a state that is included on the current list of prohibited states, we’ll contact you directly in order to make other arrangements.
Porthos reserves the right to hold shipment of your wine during extreme weather conditions.
Although unlikely, we reserve the right to raise prices for shipping/handling without notice.
Porthos cannot be responsible for damage to wine (including leakage or damaged corks) shipped to you against our express protestations in regards to weather conditions.
Porthos cannot be responsible for wine damaged by a shipper or inappropriate storage/handling on the part of the buyer, although we will make a reasonable effort to resolve any disputes.
We reserve the right to refuse sales if we deem it to be inappropriate and/or unsafe.
If you're not happy with a purchase or one of our recommendations, we'll do what it takes to make you happy. We ask our customers to acknowledge that wine is a living thing, easily bruised, damaged, or destroyed in a variety of ways. All wine sold by us is maintained at optimum conditions. We consider wine to be out of our control once it has been successfully delivered and you've had a reasonable amount of time to sample it. We cannot be responsible for improper storage (storing on top of your refrigerator, in your car, next to your oven, for example). Know your palate: Older wines (ten years or more) may differ from their characteristics on release - and still be great wines. If you purchase older wines, be patient and allow your mind - and the wine - to open. We cannot accept returns for sound wines that do not coincide with personal tastes. In general, Porthos will make every effort to resolve any wine issues to your satisfaction.
Occasionally, we offer our most highly-sought-after wines to our loyal clients on a pre-order basis before the wine is released. We believe this is the most democratic manner in which to guarantee quantities of particular wines desired by our clients. In order to guarantee the wine purchase, Porthos will charge the client for wine, shipping, and sales tax (if applicable) at the time of the order. At that time, Porthos will advise the client of the estimated shipping date. Then, Porthos will notify the client once the pre-ordered wine ships. Timing may range from several weeks to a few months before the winery delivers their wine to us.
At Porthos, we never claim to have the absolute cheapest prices on every wine because we have found that some competitors occasionally misprice items and/or “bait and switch” pricing on a few bottles of a big name wine that happens to mysteriously “sell out” when a purchase is attempted. Porthos provides competitive retail pricing on featured wines to offer our members a fair deal and avoid any price “gouging” on our rarest selections. In most situations, if you find a wine priced significantly lower in a legitimate offer from a competitor Porthos will strive to match that offering*.
*Depends on availability. Price will be matched once we receive confirmation of the lower price.
Our #1 focus at Porthos is providing the finest personalized service to our discriminating clientele. The majority of Porthos members are serious wine collectors that place a premium on our ability to customize recommendations and source rare wines that they will personally enjoy. We’ve learned that a big rating or the “cheapest price” for a particular wine is not a true “value” to a thirsty wine lover if they do not enjoy the actual bottle.
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