Best Place To Buy Wine
Shipping: $15 for 2 or 6 bottles (cross-country UPS ground). Many shipping options.Location: MarylandSummary: This site is geared toward value-seeking, bold red wine drinkers offering a large selection from California, Washington and Bordeaux. Since the selection is designed for low prices, it does have a large number of average-to-low quality wines which requires savvy shopping to buy wine online. Still, Total Wine is the only online wine store that ships to all 50 states! The site user experience does feel a bit clunky with slow page loads but checkout is easy.
best place to buy wine
Location: New YorkSummary: High end Italian wines offered at moderately fair values. Wine selection is small but is clearly curated by people who care and who are in-the-know. The user experience is not fun, because of difficultly finding and sorting wines.
Local retailers are amazing, but we can see how brick-and-mortar stores are drying up in place of online marketplaces. This is happening with wine too. As long as the US can sort out wine shipping. Fortunately, the more we buy wine online (and are picky about quality and value), the more local retailers will move to the digital space.
Whether you're hosting a holiday gathering or having a quiet night in, the only thing better than a perfect bottle of wine is not having to leave the house to get it. Online options require minimal energy but deliver on all the perks. Just remember to read the fine print and plan on having someone 21 or older sign for the package.
If you're looking for an ongoing delivery service, check out our guide to the best wine subscriptions. Otherwise, you'll find a list below of the best places that will deliver wine straight to your door.
NakedWines.com is like a "Shark Tank" for independent wines, and it has an "Angel" membership program that crowd-funds independent wine labels across the globe. Angel members get up to 60% off listed prices, among other perks, for depositing $40 a month into a wine "bank account" they can use whenever they want. NakedWines.com also gives out $100 vouchers often. You can get one by taking a 30-second quiz on the site.
Note: Nakedwines.com was previously experiencing increased demand and delayed shipments due to the coronavirus. Operations are back to normal now, but you may still want to account for any unexpected delivery delays with your order.
The company has a luxury collection, limited edition bottles, and top trending gifts to skim through. It also offers high-end gift packaging and custom engraving, perfect for those looking to gift a really good bottle of liquor with a personalized message. High-brow options aside, ReserveBar also has plenty of wine for less than $50.
All shipments must be signed for by a 21-year-old adult. Products have a "ship to" section that shows which states allow delivery of that particular liquor or wine. Select cities can use ReserveBar Express and get fine spirits and Champagne delivered to their door the same day.
Wine.com boasts the world's largest online wine selection, plus the convenience of home delivery or pick-up from convenient local stores (like Walgreens) that may be open late or on weekends. It's a good place to find old favorites, discover new wines, and shop collectible and boutique wines. As an additional perk, Wine.com sells gift baskets, glassware, and other wine accessories.
All shipments must be signed for by an adult over 21 years old, and packages can't be left on your doorstep or delivered to a PO box. Fees may apply if your wine returns to the company as undeliverable. If you work during the day, it's smart to send your box to a convenient local pick-up location or your business address to ensure delivery.
Vinebox immediately stands out for its unique vials of wine, which give individual pours but still maintain the full flavor and mouthfeel of the wine. Every three months, Vinebox sends you a box of nine of these "glasses." They contain seasonal varieties, wines you should be drinking right now, and other fun picks. Each quarter, you'll also receive up to $30 in credits to buy the full-size versions.
According to Dry Farm, the government approves of the use of 76 additives, and since wine bottles are not required to have contents labels, you don't get the full picture of what you're drinking. The company imports all of its natural wines from small family farmers around the world, but mostly from Europe.
Shipping: All ground shipping is free, while expedited shipping has a small fee. Dry Farm Wines only ships to the US, but it offers helpful advice for finding natural wines if you're located elsewhere.
California-based winery Winc, which sommelier Brian Smith co-founded, uses an online Palate Profile, along with your own ratings, to recommend and ship wines tailored to your tastes as a subscription. Or, you can buy bottles a la carte.
The wines, which come from winemakers all over the world as well as Winc's own vineyard, start at $13 a bottle. There's no fee or commitment to join, and you can skip a month's shipment any time you want.
When you first sign up for Firstleaf, you'll get six bottles of wine for just $40. Afterward, you'll be automatically subscribed to get another six bottles for $90. Firstleaf prides itself on its custom algorithm that predicts which one of its many award-winning wine options you'll like, and if you don't like a bottle, you'll get a refund. Outside of the subscription, you can also buy individual bottles from its store.
FreshDirect is one of the best grocery delivery services in New York City. It has a limited delivery scope, but it carries pretty much everything (including beer, wine, and liquor) that you'd pick up at your local store. Like a regular store, it also runs weekly deals.
For a morning or early afternoon delivery (two-hour time slots), you must place your order by 6 p.m. the day before. For a late afternoon or evening delivery (two-hour time slots), you must place your order by 11 p.m. the day before.
Like ReserveBar, Drizly offers other kinds of alcohol in addition to wine. Best of all, it delivers the exact wine you need in under an hour, and it doesn't mark up prices. Most of its 3,000+ wine offerings are affordable (less than $20) and nearly half of its stock is red wine.
You can get six bottles for under $9 per bottle (plus free shipping), but it's worth noting that those deals are part of the Macy's wine club. Unless you cancel, you'll receive a new case every three months, and you'll be charged for it. However, there's no obligation to continue, and you'll get an email reminder before you're charged.
I think you should have not gone beyond #2. The rest pale in comparison for Beginners. Beginners need hand-holding to help them find their way; a local indie wine store does just that.My number 3 would be independent grocery store that has good/great wines, like Bi-Rite.Whole Foods wines keeps getting more boring; unless you're at a "big" Whole Foods, pass. They deserve to be bunched with all Chain Grocery stores. Their beer selection, on the other hand, is way better than any other chain grocery store I've been into.Wine Chains - some are just terrible and some are good. I don't think they should be bunched all-together. BevMo, for example, is way better than TotalWine.Mail order - out-of-state purchases don't get charged sales tax, so shipping cost replaces that, meaning it's not a big deal.Trader Joe's is a Chain Grocery Store. Chain grocery stores tend to only industrial wines and wines that got deals on. I would not send anyone there.
I didn't list "stores like Bi-Rite" because I haven't encountered many. It's a great place to buy wine, and is really like a local wine shop that also has food.Ironically on the day this posted I went into an absolutely terrible local wine shop. I tried to get some advice on the wines of a country with which I am not very familiar. Because my Spanish is not very good, I started my description of the type of wines I wanted with something I could say, "I like wines that are lower in alcohol." The guy blustered. "All wines in Argentina are the same. They're all 14 or 15% alcohol. The same." I turned around a few labels to check for myself and he got angrier. "See! The same. 14%, 15%, they're all the same."So not all local wine shops are helpful. The punch line to this is that this is the last wine shop at the end of the world -- in Tierra del Fuego. I bought an $8 Bonarda and got the hell out of there.
Two things you can buy at Costco without a membership - food and alcohol. You can only pay in cash though. There are 3 Costco stores in NorCal with dedicated wine staff (Dublin, Novato, and Rocklin) I bought a 1/2 case in wood of 2007 Dominus at the Novato store
Yes, there are plenty of local wine shops that are just so-so or worse (like a couple I went to in West Hartford earlier in the year). You have to be lucky to live near a good one - but if you do, you're then on track.
@Bob HenryI mostly agree with you, although a few of the smaller Whole Foods will have a guy who really cares about what to carry, although often they'll be a bit limited by the amount of shelf space and what management/corporate will let them carry. But, if you are somewhere with a bigger/flagship store, it can be very good. @latourOh really? This is very interesting to me... This will let me peruse the wines without having to have a membership. Nice. I'll have to give this a try!
Only some Whole food regions have good wine. the ones in Norcal are awesome, even though they charge more than any other store in the world for their wines.The Whole foods in Washington DC however sell the same garbage Southern Wine and Spiritis Supermarket wines as any Safeway or Giant. Its rueful. No small producers, no real naturalista wines, Supermarket large production wine with a couple of okay slightly more "artisinal" wines randomly thrown in. 041b061a72