new flash sale site - vitis.com

In an effort to differentiate themselves from the other flash sale sites that have popped up like weeds in the past few years, vitis.com says (from their site):

For each wine we offer our team carefully selects the ideal recipe pairing, clearly explaining why the two go so well together. After all what is more magical than wine and food paired perfectly together?

We also tell you something of interest about each of our wines in our Discover section. We may write about the grape variety, the wine maker, the appellation or the history behind the wine. Learning about wine should be just as fun as enjoying it – with Discover we make facts easy to swallow.

All of our wines are chosen, tasted and vetted by our expert wine tasting panel. The Vitis Wine Tasting Panel is comprised of two Masters of Wine and a WSET Diploma holder making it one of the most accomplished in the world!

In my (very limited - I only found it last week!) experience, they seem to offer more wine-geeky selections than many of the others, such as the 2006 Quinta Senhora da Ribeira VP up now, and the 2003 Nicolas Joly Clos de la Coulée de Serrant Savennières offered last week. I ordered the Savennières, since I had wanted to try it when I saw it on Lot18 last year but they were unable to ship to my state. Free shipping for most offers looks like it starts at 2 to 4 bottles. I can say customer service has been great - when I placed an order and wanted to add an extra bottle after the fact they handled my request promptly and professionally.

Something that isn’t prominently featured on the site and that I haven’t explored myself beyond cursory reading is their hold policy. Apparently you can specify during the order process to have your wine held in their facilities indefinitely as a personal “cellar”, and they will ship it on demand. And since you’ve already paid for shipping when you bought the wine, I don’t believe there’s an extra charge. It seems sort of like just an extended version of the “weather hold”, only it’s the “when I feel like it” hold.

Their referral program is interesting, too: you can redeem first-purchase credits from referrals for Reidel glasses (1-2 referrals per glass, depending on the style). If you’d like to help me earn glasses, here’s my link:
http://vitis.com/wine?code=L3xF8I

Disclaimer: I have no connections to this site whatsoever, I’m just a happy customer.


EDIT: Got an email, coupon code FORBES0312 for 10% off any order through 16 March. Enjoy!

Thanks Mark. Looks like a good site. Elegant & clean design and good user interface. Let’s see what the offers look like in the next few days.

The Vitis Wine Tasting Panel is comprised of two Masters of Wine and a WSET Diploma holder making it one of the most accomplished in the world!
Which is of course, neither logical nor significant. What do I care if an MW recommends a wine that I don’t like? Change my mind about it because I don’t know jack about wine?

The highest recommendation for me is “50% off!” flash site or not. I like discounts, not wine pairing recs.

That said, I know the folks on the team and they’re fine people. And the offer of storage is great. Price is about what you can find the wine for elsewhere, but if you throw in the storage, it’s OK.

The Vin de Pays d’Allobrogie sounded interesting, But once again the State of Texas is protecting me from substandard products that could be dangerous to me. At least that what one of the lawyers said when they stopped out of state retailers and auction houses from shipping to the state.

Yeah, so their price with shipping is $21. They claim the best price on the web is $31.53 (which apparently is $24.99 plus estimated shipping). But MacArthur has it for $15.99. Hmmmmm.



Another point of price comparison, then: current offer is 2007 Joseph Phelps Eisrébe Ice Wine @ $24/375ml w/free shipping on two, while WS Pro and CT show low/average prices around $40 for 375ml.

Like any “deal” site I think it just takes some cherry-picking.

Fair enough. I didn’t see that offer, but I do think they get a bit creative and make some questionable assumptions in estimating their shipping charges. Still, I’ll check into their site on occasion to see what’s offered. Their “hold” and storage policies are a plus.

Big plus if you’re in NYC and have limited space.

BTW - Garagiste and Buckley are willing to hold too, and Winex does it for like $5.

The 2000 Trimbach Gewurtz looks like a pretty good deal, just dont think I want 4 of them so a pass.

But if anyone does (and wants a couple points today some free Reidel stems): http://vitis.com/wine?code=ZpKw1g

Shameless I know.

Like a lot of new websites/businesses, it looks like they’re going through some growing pains in terms of ease of access to information. After some digging around I found more information on their storage policies that wasn’t immediately obvious to a casual browser or visitor:

Welcome to your personal hosted wine cellar. Here you can view the wines Vitis is storing for you in its temperature-controlled facilities. For the first two weeks, the cost of storage is on us. There is no rush to have the wine shipped to you if you are away for the week and do not want to pass up a great deal. After the first two weeks, we are happy to store your wine for $1.75 a case per month. For more details on pricing, please view our Terms and Conditions. Wine can only be purchased and retrieved from the cellar in multiples of the number of bottles necessary for ground shipping to be included in the bottle price (this number is always indicated on the home page). Upon retrieving wine from your cellar, you will have the option to choose FedEx 2Day or Standard Overnight shipping for an additional charge.

So not quite as attractive as it is made to sound in their promotional materials.

Looks like a site worth following, but you should know that the storage isn’t free forever. After the first two weeks they charge $1.75/case/month. Here are the terms and conditions:

https://vitis.com/cellar-terms-and-conditions