Your favorite online wine retailers

Just curious who you like to use for ordering wine online and why?

My thoughts on a few...

WTSO (http://wtso.com) - Purchased a few deals from them, and I thought the wine was pretty good. I got an Artesa Cab and a Mockingbird Hill Cab. Shipping was free, but somewhat slow. They seem to rotate a lot of the same wines into their offers, and the quality seems to have a lower ceiling than other flash sale sites.

Last Bottle Wines (http://lastbottlewines.com) - Probably my favorite in the flash sale realm. Tons of great wines at all sorts of prices. I bought the 2010 Terre Nere Brunello recently, and the 2013 La Folette Pinot. Both excellent. Living in CA the shipping is very quick thanks to GSO.

Wine Country Connection (http://winecountryconnection.com) - I like this shop because they always have new and interesting wines from smaller producers and competitive pricing. I found the Textbook Cabernet here, which became a favorite in the sub-$30 Cabernet range. Also the 2012 Foley Johnson Pinot is just ridiculously good, on par with the Belle Glos stuff but half the price.

[David M. Bueker]

I am not a fan of the flash sale sites. Too much dross with too few interesting bottles.

I would rather support Chambers Street Wines or other similar shops that stock the types of wines I like to drink.

We usually order directly from wineries in lieu of online retailers.

+1 re what David and Carl said

[David M. Bueker]

We usually order directly from wineries in lieu of online retailers.

Kind of hard to do if you want Muscadet, Chinon or a nice Riesling Auslese.

[Robin Garr]

Chambers Street Wines.

There's my answer, right there.

We usually order directly from wineries in lieu of online retailers.

Kind of hard to do if you want Muscadet, Chinon or a nice Riesling Auslese.

I buy those in a wine store. They are readily available, but it is practically impossible to buy a Finger Lakes Riesling in a store around here.

I buy those in a wine store. They are readily available, but it is practically impossible to buy a Finger Lakes Riesling in a store around here.

Living in "Newcastle*" that is a challenge for me. I would love to try some of the cold climate eastern wineries like New York State, Virginia, Missouri, or Michigan. I have seen one New York State Riesling here regularly (I love Ravines, and the winemaker has California roots (which may explain the access here), so I am not complaining about access to Ravines at all, but...) I guess the same argument can be made about small production artisan wineries in California, too.

* Coals to Newcastle. American wine to California.

[Jenise]

Mike, welcome to WLDG. I buy, or have bought, a number of times from the first two sites you mention but am unfamiliar with the third. My take? WTSO is not trustworthy. Though they sell some decent real wines, and did more in the past than they seem to do nowadays, they sell a lot of 'brands' that aren't real producers at all; in some cases it's a made-up winery name where no brick and mortar winery actually exists, or it's a special bottling attributed to a real winery but which bottling never existed at actual retail and therefore the prices they claim as best web price etc are outright lies, or it's a real winery name like Cosentino, but which went out of biz long ago and since sold its name to a bulk juice bottler who then markets the product thru WTSO (and nowhere else) as if it's related to the winery Cosentino used to be, but isn't. I suspect your Mockingbird Hill of being the first of the three examples I've mentioned. But anyway, that's why you see the same names coming up over and over. You really have to do your homework. It's doubtful I'd buy from them again.

But Last Bottle's the real deal. They really do sell some excellent wines at killer prices. And for the most part, their pitches are fairly honest.

I love WTSO but "buyer beware" certainly applies. Jonathan Newman has never met a wine that he didn't love and they do sell lots of off brand plonk. That being said, we use the site for some daily drinkers and sparkling wines. Prices are very competitive and customer service outstanding. We have never had an issue with shipping. You do occasionally find a real gem - Caymus Special Selection and Cristal at excellent prices come to mind.

We also use Last Bottle regularly though their shipping tends to be slow. For higher-end stuff we have usually looked to Sokolin. Most of the problems I have encountered have been in sourcing wines from the producers rather than purchasing them through on-line retailers.

On the West Coast, K&L is probably the best overall retailer, and they have an excellent spirits selection as well. Prices are good, not as cheap as some. Highly recommended, though if I'm buying a case I might just get it from Chambers, which has more Dressner stuff.

I can recommend, with important reservations, Garagiste and Premier Cru, though I've dropped off their mailing lists. Premier Cru is currently having some cash flow issues, apparently serious, and given that their best deals are on pre-arrival bottles with long lead times, months to multiple years, I can only recommend purchasing in-stock wines, which are pretty well picked over at this point.

Garagiste is a flash sale site of a kind, but they have pulled enough shenanigans with their "Mystery Wines" and "Mystery Cases" that I refuse to purchase from there. Some of the wines are outstanding in price and quality, and most are dreck. You have to be disciplined to read the purple-prose emails every day and only pull the trigger when it's something you know. I've been reasonably satisfied with what I've received when buying producers that are unknown to me, but no more than that.

Lastbottlewines is not bad, but there it's like finding a diamond in the rough. I typically don't visit that site, but rely on http://vinelog.com/deals to tell me when there's something worth checking out.

[Jenise]

For conventional online retailers, K & L for us on the left coast, for sure. Also, JJ Buckley.

Has anyone tried "Tasting Room", or have any thoughts on it? I only just heard of it this morning, where it was called "the Netflix of wine".

Besides ordering directly from wineries, I purchase from multiple sources: Woodland Hills Wine Company, Benchmark Wine Group (some library wines of older vintages), Macarthur Beverages/Bassins in DC, Burgundy Wine Company in NYC (expensive but specializes in Burgundies), Down-to-Earth Wines (Delaware?).

Mike, I see you work for Last Bottle, assume you have an interest in Wine Country Connection as well (thought it was strange someone listing faves would include an obscure store I've never heard of).

My two favorite stores are probably Chambers (already mentioned several times, deserves Slate's article "greatest wine retailer in US") and Grapes the Wine Company (White Plains NY not the scammy Grapes in CT). Latter has crappy website, with mediocre pricing, but very sharp pricing if you sign up for emails. I also read and sometimes buy from Zachys, PJS, and Crush. Ethical stance against buying from Acker. Occasional purchases from Wine Cellarage, Flatiron, Sherry-L. , Pops, or Wine Connection.

Elsewhere In Northeast I occasionally buy from Garys, Cellaraiders, or Bassins/MacArthurs. Wine Library stopped shipping to me.

HDH in midwest.

On West coast Winex, Envoyer, and WHWC. No more PC for me.

Dropped WTSO. Very occasionally Last Bottle.

Wine Library was a longtime fav of mine until NY stopped them from shipping into NY, had to give them up as I wasn't gonna drive down to NJ to pickup the wines..

[Jenise]

Mike, I see you work for Last Bottle, assume you have an interest in Wine Country Connection as well (thought it was strange someone listing faves would include an obscure store I've never heard of).

Aha! I see it too: Marketing Manager!

Note to Mike: Last Bottle has a lot of fans here, obviously. Lots of us would be happy to tell you that and provide some public testimony if you revealed your connection in the first place. But to not do so, to act like you're just another satisfied customer--that kind of 'marketing' ploy has been around since the invention of the internet and it never endears you or the company you represent to anyone. Just sayin'.

I buy from Marketview in Rochester, Premier in Buffalo, Northside in Ithaca and occasionally from Empire in Albany. Considered as a group, the overall selection is good. All are within reasonable driving distance, but shipping usually turns out to be less than the cost of driving.

[Jenise]

I have a problem with Northside. When I was ordering wines for a FL wine tasting I hosted, they sold me an oxidized--I mean brown in the bottle, all three bottles, all three CLEAR bottles so obvious to the naked eye--white wine. I'm drawing a blank on which hybrid white it was, vidal? Or something like seyval? And this after discussing wines over the phone with them, in which it was clear I wasn't clueless. Based on reccomendations from people on this board, I trusted them and got shafted. And of course after paying beaucoup bucks to ship all that to the west coast, it wasn't like I could return them.

Sorry to hear your experience with Northside. I've shopped there for years and never had anything like it.

[Jenise]

Sorry to hear your experience with Northside. I've shopped there for years and never had anything like it.

Since the oxidation was so obvious, I have no choice but to presume they thought it safe to palm it off on a long-distance customer. Unforgiveable any way you look at it.

Curious, did you let them know?

[Jenise]

No, Dan, I didn't. Like I said, the wine in the bottle was BROWN. And the bottles were clear glass. It was obvious! That wine should not have still been on their inventory let alone shipped. Even if the person who took my order didn't understand their condition, the person who put them in the shipping box did. Inexcusable.