Wondering what the thoughts are on the board about wine discounting sites. There have been recent threads on WineSlash and WineSpies. WTSO is another one I’ve read about. I think these are also called Flash sites, though that might be a different thing. I’m honestly not sure.
I am still fairly early in my wine journey. Generally, I have an idea of regions and styles that I enjoy, but do not have enough the experience to always be seeking out specific bottles. Since I’m not looking for anything super specific, these sites seem ideal. And the prices are oftentimes well below retail.
But I wonder about the quality of these services. Are the bottles generally well stored? Is provenance a big issue (I’d doubt it given the low prices, but you never know…) How does the customer service tend to fare?
Would you recommend these types of sites? For those of you that would, or have used them in the past, are there are particular ones you would recommend? Ones to avoid?
Last Bottle and First Bottle (they’re kind of sister companies) are good solid discount online retailers. Not every offer is for everybody but sooner or later they will probably have an attractive offer for you.
I’ve used Wineslash, WTSO, Winespies, and Lastbottle. Always when they have a known quantity for a good deal. Haven’t had an issue with any of them. I don’t buy in to the hype at all for any of their proprietary or NDA stuff or unknown quantities…in fact, I pretty much ignore their hyped-up text and notice that most of the time when they post a high score it ends up being from Suckling, so you have to know what you’re buying to pull the trigger otherwise you might be let down.
They’re worth subscribing to if only to get a sense of where the price floor on certain brands really lies. I’d say that they provide great value during times of surplus or economic downturn, and they tend towards private labels and inflated prose and retail during times of shorter supply.
I will echo the general consensus above about not buying into the hype, not going for vague mystery offers and NDA wines… but I would have no hesitation buying known products that you want from them when at attractive prices.
LastBottle and FirstBottle, Garagiste, have all in MY experience had good customer service and bottles have been delivered at or above my expectations even for back-vintage wines. In fact the majority of offers I actually buy on LastBottle and Garagiste are back-vintage offers.
I have had many good experiences with WTSO and a decent amount with Last Bottle and First Bottle. None that were really anything to complain about.
I think the key is being able to ignore the massive amounts of hype they put on nearly every bottle, mostly undeserved hype. They are also overly aggressive in keeping your attention on their sites. From my experience WTSO has had a ton of hidden gems though and occasionally some more benchmark wines at good prices too.
So true. In a three week span I didn’t think of buying anything. It sounds like they were better years ago. They seem to advertise all the good lots that sold out on their site.
Purchasing online can be an extremely effective method of turning a $20 bottle of wine into a $40 bottle of wine, via the magic of Shipping & Handling.
Maybe if you lived somewhere like Antarctica, you’d be forced to order all of your wine online, but unless the bottle were roughly $100+, shipping it would not generally be a sound* financial decision.
If you’ve got one or two decent retailers within a 15 or 20 mile drive, then you’d save a ton of money purchasing from them, rather than ponying up all that dough for S&H.
Finally, be especially leery of online merchants which are using S&H as a profit driver [rather than as a loss leader].
*My guess is that many [most?] people on this board don’t make sound decisions when purchasing wine, but at some point [if they’re not trust fund babies] they will have to come to terms with their own impetuousness.
Any rational buyer of course considers shipping costs. 85% of my retail purchases are local, but even in NY metro somethings I need to go farther for. I don’t often buy from flash sites, but when I do it is usually (always?) free shipping. As to sound decision making, don’t take advice from folks known for extolling Chrish Peel at Carolina Wine as the epitome of retailers.
I have placed 11 orders from WTSO in 11 years. I just looked them over and I regret none of them. All well-known brands, especially discount bubbly. You have to be patient and be willing to wait until something good pops up. I got a bottle of 2008 La Grande Dame 2 years ago for $120 plus tax no shipping. That’s an excellent price, but only if you like that wine. I do.
After reading Jay’s last message, I was compelled to count my number of WTSO orders over the last 11 years…and a shipment that arrived this week while I was out of town was #100. Not sure whether to be ashamed or proud. Though I live adjacent to wine country, I struggle to acquire good value white burg, Rhône and red Bordeaux that isn’t plonk. I love wtso for the above categories of wine. Very very dependable, and free shipping for 4 bottles usually. They will also hold your wines in the summer. I like their collective palate, so I trust them.
I’ve bought a fair amount of lastbottle as well, but I pick and choose there, and ALWAYS check the ABV…they seem to be partial to big 15%+ bombers, which I abhore. They also lean towards a kirsch profile on Rhônes that I don’t care for…so always look for the kirsch descriptor…they offer it with pride. They do free shipping too.
I’ve never been disappointed by Garagiste other than their “mystery” wines, which had consistently underperformed for me. They have great back vintage stuff, but their shipping can be steep.
I’ve not tried first bottle, maybe I should.
Overall advice has been shared, don’t get caught up in the private label or mystery BS, and there are some great gems to be had!
They’ve always had great customer service, and I’ve had a bit of success with the mystery wines but ONLY when they’ve been Italian. My concern is that the percentage of their email offerings that relate to these “mystery wines” has rapidly increased over the past 2-3 years, from “occasional” to what now seems like 50%+ of their total offers. For the most part, I view these offers as SPAM–a lengthy email saying nothing more than “This wine is cheap for $X, but we can’t tell you what it is. But we CAN tell you that it’s not 2011 or 2013, and right now, and it’s not from South Africa, and it may or may not be from the Southern Hemisphere, and there’s someone, somewhere, who is being asked to pay more for it.”
Several of them offer free shipping if you spend more than, say, $100, or buy more 3 or 4 of those lower priced bottles. The value prop usually wouldn’t be there if you buy only a singleton $20 bottle (if you can find a local retailer that carries the bottle you’re eyeballing at a decent price). When you get into even the $40 territory, sometimes paying the shipping for a few of those bottles from an online retailer that has enough of a discount can put you square or even ahead with the markup the local retailer who has those bottles might charge. Certainly the case in the state I live in.