Do you buy or sell wine via Internet (sites, auctions)?

I won't be able to call in so I'll post.

I use sites I hear about from word of mouth mostly, I won't just up and use any site. If multiple people have tried it and found it to be legitimate, I'll give it a shot.

Here's the online sites I've tried.

Wine Woot: Interesting and quirky wine site that sells one wine per week starting at the 0:00 hour Monday morning [midnight Sunday]. Their selections usually hail from California, with the occasional Washington and Oregon mixed. They have offered Sake, Sparlking Wines, and fruity summer quaffers. They choose the wines by hand and are sure to taste them first, and the prices are low so you usually get a deal. Customer Service is top notch and they will give you offers on free shipping for problems, and will replace broken or bad bottles no questions asked. On the downside, you are usually purchasing a "bundle" meaning you get anywhere from 2-6 wines depending on that weeks offering which can be 3 of the same wines or a sampling of 4 different vintages/varietals. You can only buy up to 3 of the bundles. Online community forums are strong, and the winemakers often post and answer questions. Shipping is a flat $5 no matter how little or great your order. Gotten a couple great offerings, one not so much. Also if you live in Jersey, Mass., Arizona, and a couple other states, you can bank on LONG delivery times due to horrible state regulations [if you can even get the wine to begin with]. It took over 2 months for my Kunde wine to get to me... I can get a car made and shipped from Europe in less time.

Wine Library: Many are familiar with this site. Huge selection, wonderful online community. free.winelibrary.com offers a daily selection with free shipping starting at 1 PM. Shipping is fast, in Jersey it got to me overnight.

WinesTilSoldOut: Offers one wine per day at seemingly rock bottom prices. Site has it's quirks, offering different vintages from the picture and sometimes wines that could be past their prime, like one I just got, so you get what you pay for. First bottle was eh, 2nd was much better and worth the $13 per bottle. Free shipping if you buy a minimum amount of bottles. Takes few days for the order to get process, from 3-5 days.

Garden State Wine Club: Not truly an online site as you can't buy online, but you can sign up for the club online so I feel it counts. Unlike other clubs, you can mix and match reds, whites AND price points, I get 2 $10 reds, 1 $10 white, and 1 $20 red per month. Club is priced according to dollar value and is not a flat rate, so you won't get screwed by a club that charges you $20/month and sends you $15 worth of wines. Competitive prices, reorders of monthly offerings can be had for great prices. Shipping is free, but your order will come once a month with your club offering. Very pleased with the offerings I've received so far, no complaints. They do not offer any sort of a catalogue other than an online list of previous monthly offerings, which is annoying because you don't really know what they have in stock and what you can order.

I buy a fair percentage of my wines online. Even from local stores I might buy from website or by email and then pickup. While I love to browse in stores, a lot of stores send emails on sales that one knows the wine just won't be there if you wait till next visit.

I mentally divide the places I purchase into several rough categories:
A. Premium stores- no provenance concerns, impeccable storage, I'm willing to pay a little more for older bottles from them.

B. Solid stores: I buy at good deals, think they believe in what they sell, but know that they are often sourcing things after release or that things might be on shelves for a while.

C. New release stores: I only buy recent releases here

D. Auction sites - I only buy here at a significant discount to what I'd pay elsewhere. Experiences mostly positive, but I'd had some cooked bottles now and then. This category would also include the clearance places (like winestillsoldout). I'm on their mailing list, but usually find their discounts based on very inflated original prices. And a fair number of the offerings are almost certain to be overthehill - there are no bargains at any price for unknown 6 yr old NZ SB.

Below are CT's reports of the stores I've purchased the most from since 2005 (when I started entering in CT). Some stores like Chambers are probably underreported, as I don't enter most $10 drink-now wines in CT.

A. Zachys -in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup
A/B Premier Cru never been in store, just order online and delivery
A/B Post-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup
A.Chambers-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup
B CellaRaiders-never been in store, just order online and delivery
A/B Rochambeau in store purchases
D. WineBid- just bid online and delivery
A.Woodlands Hills -never been in store, just order online and delivery
B. Benchmark-never been in store, just order online and delivery
A.Grapes in Rye-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup D. WineCommune - just bid online and delivery
A.Sherry-Lehmann-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup
B. Cellar91-never been in store, just order online and delivery
A/B WineLibrary-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup or have delivered
A/B Wine Exhange - just order online and deliver, though have been in few times when in CA to make purchases
B Hart Davis Hart never been in store, just order online and delivery
B MacArthurs/Bassins never been in store, just order online and delivery A/B.PJs -in store purchases, sometimes order online and have delivered
C. Garnet in store purchases
B. Wizers never been in store, just order online and delivery
B. Blicker Pierce never been in store, just order online and delivery
C. Suburban-in store purchases
C. Park Avenue Liquor -in store
A Bentley- personal
A/B Astor-in store purchases, sometimes order online and have delivered
B Wine House never been in store, just order online and delivery
Sterling- in store purchases
A. Wine Connection-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup
B Acker Merrill-in store purchases, sometimes order online and pickup

As to delivery, I try to be very clear re delivery schedules- no July shipments! I tend to ask for Monday shipouts, to reduce chances of sitting in a warehouse on a weekend. I'm helped by having a commercial ship to address.

Sure I buy from internet merchants. Éasy to find wines you want from comfort of your own home.

Only drawbacks are

1) some have minimum case (12 bots) for order
2) cost of delivery usually add something like 50p ($1) per bottle (i.e. 5.95 per case)
3) ideal for someone to be in to receive delivery, though they will leave case with neighbour or at back of house if requested on order

In US one factor that makes a difference re shipping is that out of state retailers don't generally charge sales tax. So if you order 6 bottles totalling $300, for me it's $25 shipping from CA, or $45 tax here.

At this time we buy most of our internet wines from: Chambers Street http://www.chambersstwines.com/ ; Pops http://www.popswine.com/ ; Southern Hemisphere http://www.southernwines.com/ ; and Taste of Monterey http://www.tastemonterey.com . Shipping costs seem to be getting higher and higher; so we have been limiting ourselves to the East Coasters. Did recently get a nice case of southern Pinots from Southern, but the shipping was something like $35 U.S. Taste of Monterey puts together some very nice holiday packages, so we like to do our Christmas shopping there. The California shippers also charge you CA sales tax.

Having said all that, we are doing very little such buying these days. The New Hampshire Liquor Guys are getting better and better, and we are only a stone’s throw from MA and ME.

Cheers, Carl

[Jenise]

I buy the majority of my wine via the internet and probably over half at auctions where, like Dale, I'm looking to spend around 50% of retail or am buying back vintages of wines I've decided I like and which I didn't buy initially or didn't buy enough of and which are no longer available at retail.

Too, my greatest wine love, and half my cellar, is Bordeaux, but I didn't start seriously socking Bordeaux away until about 2000. And you just don't start buying and drinking Bordeaux, you buy and wait. A long time. So backfilling--buying wines in vintages I would have bought if I knew then what I know now--can only be done through some form of secondary market, and those are primarily auctions and brokers who pick up and resell other people's collections. I'm very fortunate to live in a reciprocal state where shipping isn't an issue. I think the sales tax savings Dale referred to will go away fairly soon, but for now the lack of sales tax offsets shipping so it's not more expensive than shopping here at home.

If I could actually buy Bordeaux in my area, which I can't. Even if I weren't buying back vintages, to buy Bordeaux and a lot of the non-maintstream wines I learn about from my friends here in WLDG, I have to "go outside".

Great topic, Randy!

I buy quite a bit of my wine online. The main reason is that I like the increased selection. There are a lot of producers, including the WLDG's own ESJ, that aren't distributed in New Mexico.

I have my purchases shipped to my workplace... because of the nature of the place there is always someone there (24/7) to sign for it.

However, my UPS guy, Karl, is a peach..... he will call me if he is running late and he has a wine shipment on the truck for me so that I can meet him and pick up the shipment somewhere on my way home instead of staying even later at work. He knows I want those packages as soon as they come in (and he knows I track them!).

He has always been exclusively a beer drinker, but I generally give him a bottle from each case he delivers and he is learning to really appreciate wine now. Since he is at my office everyday for one thing or another (there are 40 people there receiving packages), we have some interesting discussions.

I purchase roughly 35-40% of my wines online,largely due to increased selection. I live in WV, where retailers are at the mercy of the distributers.
I am fortunate enough to live in a university community with a couple of really good wine shops whose owners are knowledgeable and helpful. I've actually become friends with both proprietors and prefer to give them as much of my business as possible. However, there are wines they simply do not have access to, at which point I turn to the internet.

I have had very positive experiences with the following resources:

Winelibrary.com
Wine.com
Wineexpress.com
Calwine.com
Winebid.com (auction site,nice resource for higher-end,hard to find wines)

The first four offer great selection and service(shipping charges are reasonable as opposed to local sales tax)

At Winebid.com, in addition to the price, you'll pay a 14% buyers surcharge + s/h, which adds substantially to the cost. This becomes a case of how difficult is it to find and how badly do you want it.

A couple of caveats in online ordering: you need to be cogniscent of the weather through the shipping route(I think someone mentioned this in a previous post) and someone (adult) must be home to sign for it. Best option is a business address, if possible.

Having said all that, again my personal experiences have been positive.Happy shopping!

CHEERS!

Art

[Robin Garr]

Joining in belatedly, I buy a relatively small portion of my wine online because I'm fortunate enough to have good local retail selection and unfortunate enough to live in a state that's perceived to be tough on shipping (although the letter of the law was never enforced, and now it's been thrown out by federal court).

I do shop online for maybe 10 to 15 percent of my wine, mostly from Chambers Street and North Berkeley and, because of our online partnership, California Wine Club; I typically reserving online buying for the offbeat and rare items - Dressner wines in particular and the small-production California wines that CWC specializes in - that aren't distributed here.

Randy, I purchase almost all my wine online, even from local retailers where I sometimes stop by and pick up the bottles. It's much easier to pay the relatively low shipping costs than carrying wine home from, say, Chambers Street in New York City.

I've never had a bad experience with shipping, although New Jersey can be a problem. The biggest negative has been FedEx's erratic delivery policies -- they sometimes require an adult signature, and if we aren't home, they take the wine back and "store" it in a hot office.

I've purchased from at least 50 different wineries, wine clubs and retailers, and have never had a problem with the vendors.

Regards, Bob

The biggest negative has been FedEx's erratic delivery policies -- they sometimes require an adult signature, and if we aren't home, they take the wine back and "store" it in a hot office.

I've purchased from at least 50 different wineries, wine clubs and retailers, and have never had a problem with the vendors.

Although the number of wineries and clubs I have dealt with is much lower than Bob's, our experiences are relatively the same. The delivery services can be quite erratic. I have noticed the following pattern:

UPS: Most of my shipments over the years came via UPS. When I see that Yellow Delivery Attempted Notice, I place a signed note on the door to have the package delivered the next day to a neighbor, where no minor children live. UPS is quite willing to oblige and follow my delivery instructions. Every now and then, a new guy refuses to do this, but the regular guy returns the next day and all is well. Our son lives outside of Portland, OR, and his UPS guy will not deliver the package to a neighbor. It once took a 50-mile round trip drive to get his box of wine, so he does not do this any more.

FedEx: One of my new winery clubs uses FedEx; they refuse to deliver to my next door neighbor. I even called them and explained that I am paying for this service and asked them to show a bit more customer orientation. (OK, I know it was a stretch, and of course they refused.) Fortunately, a new FedEx facility just opened within minutes of my office (which does not accept personal packages). Now, when I see a FedEx Attempted Delivery Notice, I call and instruct them to hold the package for me to pick it up in person. I'm glad the new FedEx site is close to my office, because their old site was almost 20 miles away. I just refuse make that trip.

-- Clark