FAQ

Absolutely. We offer wines for sale that are already in our warehouse, as well as wines for sale when they become available from the winery before they leave the premises. As long as there is stock available on our site, you can place an order and we’ll manage the rest.

For more information please see our guide to buying en primeur

You don’t need to have an account, but we will need to know some details to ensure we can fulfill the order for you. In particular, we’ll ask your name, address and a phone number, as well as your means of payment.

We’ll also ask if you are happy to hear from us again. Your privacy is important to us and we will not share your details with anyone else.

We accept all major credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro & American Express.

You can also make payment with a cheque or via Bank Transfer.

If you would like to make a payment in Sterling, our bank account details are:

HSBC UK Bank PLC
69 Pall Mall
LONDON
SW1Y 5EY

Account Name:	Lay & Wheeler Limited
Sort Code:	40-05-20
Account Number:	72276127
IBAN:	GB42HBUK40052072276127
SWIFT:	HBUKGB4B

In order for us to efficiently process your order, please quote your account number or an order reference.

You can indeed send a gift message and you’ll find an option to do so as part of the order process online, or please request to do so over the phone.

Please note that the gift card will be sent separately from the wine, letting the lucky recipient know that a delivery is on its way.

As a leading fine wine merchant we understand the importance of provenance and take every step to ensure that our customers can be entirely confident about the wine’s shipping and storage history. The vast majority of the wines we sell have been stored at our bonded warehouse since their arrival from the winery, and if they haven’t been we will confirm so as well.

We can also provide a condition report on request.

From current offers to one of the most comprehensive ranges of fine and rare wines available in the UK, you will find pretty much all of the wines we have available for sale on our website. Very occasionally those wines that are highly sought after will not appear on the web and so it is always worth contacting us if you can’t find what you are looking for. In the event that we don’t have the specific wine you are looking for in our stocks we will endeavour to find it for you or point you in the direction of where best to look.

As wine stocks are forever changing the website is the place to visit to see what wines we have available. Wine Offers such as our en primeur campaigns and regional selections are available in print as well as on the website and if you join our mailing list, these will be sent to you.

The only restriction on order size is for customers who are buying en primeur when the case size will dictate the minimum number of bottles you can purchase. You should also bear in mind that many fine wines are delivered in wooded cases that cannot be split.

For all other wines you can buy as few or as many bottles as you wish.

Orders can be altered at anytime until the wine has left the warehouse. Please contact us as soon as you are aware of any amendments you’d like to make.

Yes. You will be asked for a delivery address when you place your order.

We aim to have your wine with you within 7 working days but for deliveries to the Highlands and Islands please allow more time.

When you place your order you will be asked if there is a safe place where your wine can be left if there’s nobody at home. 

If you provide no instructions and you are out when the wine arrives and you are not home when our carrier attempts delivery, they will leave a card giving a contact number which you may use to rearrange the delivery, however they will attempt a second time. Alternatively, collection from the depot can be arranged; the consignment will be held for a short time before being returned to Lay & Wheeler.

Please be aware, that in the very unlikely event that anything should happen to your wine once it has been left in your nominated safe place,  Lay & Wheeler cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage arising as a result of carrying out these instructions.

Lay & Wheeler have two recommended international shippers and their details are given below. You can either contact them directly for a quote or we can liaise with them on your behalf.

Connoisseur International Wines
195 A&B Crown Business Centre
Crown Way
West Drayton
Middlesex
UB7 8HP 
Tel: +44 (0) 1895 438822 Fax: +44 (0) 1895 438833 

Email: [email protected] 

Contacts: 

[email protected] 

[email protected] 

[email protected] (Speaks Mandarin & Cantonese) 

[email protected]

Seabrook Export Services Ltd
Welbeck Wharf
Unit 17
8 River Road
Barking
Essex
IG11 0JE 

Tel: +44 (0)203-288-2980 | Fax: +44 (0)203-288-2981
Email: [email protected] 

Yes, we're one of the few fine wine merchants to own and operate our fine wine storage facility, which was custom-built for the ideal conditions to store fine wine.

We are one of the largest managers of customers' private reserves in the UK, and we have a easy online brokerage platform to help you sell your wine.

Once you log into your account, there is a simple brokerage screen where you can set the price (we provide market values), agree to our terms and conditions, and instantly put your wine up for sale.

Lay & Wheeler
Unit 6,
Blackacre Road,
Great Blakenham,
Ipswich,
Suffolk.
IP6 0FL

The storage conditions will be ideal for fine wine: temperature at a constant 12C and relative humidity of 65%.

Security is of utmost importance to us, not only to protect your wine, but also as a legal requirement by the HMRC to obtain our Excise Warehouse Approval. While many of the details related to site security remain confidential, we can share that the wines will be stored within a fully enclosed site which is access-controlled and monitored by CCTV.

Yes, indeed.

We will work with trusted partners, who will remain confidential for security reasons, to ensure the safe transit of your wines. They will remain under optimum storage conditions at all times, and will be transferred directly between sites within one working day, and will be landed within 72 hours of being picked up from the London City Bond site.

All wines will be fully insured at market value during this process.

Our own team will manage the operations. We have hired an expert team with prior experience managing fine wine and other luxury and specialised goods, and will have trained them over nearly a year prior to opening the site.

All of your wine will be stored at our new site once the migration is complete.

Yes, all of our own stock will be stored here.

You will be able to withdrawal wine throughout the migration period. Please note that you may receive wines across multiple deliveries depending on where your wines are stored, prior to completing the migration. In addition, there may be temporary periods in which your wine has not yet been processed at the new site.

We will do all we can minimise any disruption.

As part of the process by which we receive all wines into the new site, we will list them out. This includes all wines which have been received as mixed cases at LCB. This is to ensure that all wines are accounted for, and to assist with ongoing counts of stock.

We do not issue a delivery order (which is essentially a change of ownership document) to individuals unless they hold accounts at the respective cask warehouses. It is our experience that warehouses are reluctant to open new accounts, especially for private individuals. In the absence of your own account with the warehouse in question, the only realistic way to hold the cask is to buy from a trustworthy company with a relationship with existing warehouse accounts and the correct bonded accreditation, ensuring that the cask number has been allocated to you and that you have received an invoice with the cask number and whisky name on it.

You can check your invoices online when you log on to your account.

Alternatively you can contact our Customer Service team:

Tel: 01473 313 233

Email: [email protected]

Follow the forgotten password link to generate a new password.

Please contact the Customer Services team who will be happy to help. 01473 313 300

Please check your wine as soon as it arrives and make a note on the delivery sheet of any damage or missing items. This will allow us to make a claim for any loss and also to facilitate a speedy replacement.

Sadly the occasional faulty bottle is a fact of the wine drinker’s life. If you come across a bottle purchased from us that is tainted or faulty please let us know and we will either arrange a credit or a replacement bottle to be sent.

If the wine has been stored by you for three months or longer, compensation will be agreed on a wine by wine basis.

Sometimes a wine isn’t faulty but doesn’t quite live up to your expectations. When this happens we do want to hear from you as this feedback is invaluable when we look at wines in the future.

We hope that your Lay & Wheeler experiences are positive but if we have fallen short in any way please contact Customer Services.

It happens! Get in touch with your wine advisor directly, and we'll work to make things right.

Your monthly account contribution will be processed on or around the last working day of the month. We'll send you an email ten working days prior which confirms the amount to be taken from your account or card.

When you become a Cellar Circle member, we'll assign you a fine wine advisor who will get in touch directly. Your advisor's contact details will be listed on your account. You can read more about our lovely team here.

We show prices “in bond”, in which the duty and VAT have not yet been applied, and “duty/VAT paid.” There’s a “toggle” on each product page to switch between prices.

If you wish to buy wines for delivery, please select "duty/VAT paid," or you can do so in your basket at checkout.

Clients who buy wine “in bond” when they wish to store the wines in our bonded warehouse, deferring the payment of duty and VAT until they wish to have the wines delivered. Clients who may wish to sell their wines on through our broking platform may choose to do this.

In order to take delivery of a wine, you must pay the duty and VAT first.

From time to time, we’ll feature wines for sale which are being sold “en primeur.” This means that the wine is not yet physically available.

Yes, you can join from Scotland, although if you are based in the Highlands or Islands, there may be a delivery charge for your wine purchases.

Yes, you can join if you live in Northern Ireland, although we do not offer free delivery as a benefit to members living here.