Bright Cellars Review

Wednesday, October 4th

2023 Wine Club Reviews

Bright Cellars

• Shipments from $66.24/month to $155.04/month
• Red and White wine available
• Algorithm-based wine selections designed for you
• Sales on first-time purchases
• Free shipping available for some membership options
• International wine selection
• Shipments from $66.24/month to $155.04/month

Bright Cellars is a personalized monthly wine club that aims to select wines based on your tastes. Founded by Joe Laurendi and Richard Yau, Bright Cellars uses a unique algorithm called Bright Points to assign scores to wines, based on the results of a quiz you take before signing up. Bright Cellars has shifted towards an algorithm-based selection process to cater to the specific needs and preferences of customers, though they do still employ expert staff to help with the final selections. Bright Cellars' staff receives intro WSET sommelier training to better serve customers.

What kind of Wine lover are you?

To get started at Bright Cellars, you first tell them whether you're a "Wine Newbie" or a "Wine Lover" . Then, the ordering process starts with a quiz that determines the flavor profile of the wines that Bright Cellars thinks you'll like. The quiz consists of seven questions, with each question having multiple-choice answers. After completing the quiz and entering your information, you are given the opportunity to add a "premium mystery bottle" to your order at a discounted price. You can also add a waiter's style corkscrew with your order for $8.00.

Wines based on the quiz

Bright Cellars offers a subscription service where you can choose from a 4-bottle delivery option, a 6-bottle delivery option, and a 12-bottle delivery option. Using the quiz results and the 100-point scale, the algorithm assigns the wines that best match your preferences to your first box. After taking the quiz, customers can indicate whether they want their wine every 4, 6, or 8 weeks at checkout. Customers do have the option to swap out wines for a different wine selected by the algorithm.

Easy options at competitive prices

After the first shipment, Bright Cellars becomes a monthly subscription. The pricing per month is based on a per-bottle basis. Both the 6- and 12-bottle subscriptions provide free shipping as part of the membership. If you calculate the monthly payment the Bright Cellars prices range from:

• 4-bottle plan: $66.24/month
• 6-bottle plan: $92.52/month
• 12-bottle plan: $155.04/month

Discounts and bonuses are available

As a bonus, Bright Cellars helps new members keep prices down with a new member discount of $110 on a 6-bottle subscription. To use the discount, the customer needs to take the wine taste quiz, discover their ideal matches, and choose the plan that suits them. If the customer needs more or less than 6 bottles, the discount can still be applied to a 4-bottle subscription with $55 off, or a 12-bottle subscription with $220 off, depending on the chosen plan.

Mystery bottle

A fun benefit at Bright Cellars is that the company offers the option to opt-in for a mystery bottle on top of the ones you're already getting in your membership for an additional $15-$20, depending on the plan you select. The mystery bottle is selected by Bright Cellars' Sommelier.

Make it your shipment schedule

If you want more flexibility with the shipments, Bright Cellars offers the option to reschedule or delay shipments. On top of that, if customers don't like a wine in the shipment, Bright Cellars will send a replacement. Plus, with the rating system at Bright Cellars, customers rate the wines after drinking them and those ratings factor into the options for the next shipment. Bright Cellars allows members to customize an order through their Wine Concierge up to 24 hours before shipment, and they have a wine blog on their website that helps you increase your knowledge of wine.

Bundles of bottles for sale

One of our favorite features at Bright Cellars is that you can buy bottles directly from their website outside of a subscription plan. So, whether you're a club member or not, you can shop for wine on the Bright Cellars site. However, they only sell the bottles in "bundles." So, there aren't any options for individual wine bottles. This does make a great way to send wine as a gift, though. The bundles are curated with particular themes, like the "influencer" bundle which is based on the tastes of famous influencers online.

High customer ratings

In terms of customer satisfaction Bright Cellars has a great reputation with the BBB. The bureau has awarded Bright Cellars an "A+" rating and full accreditation for its customer service. In terms of third party review sites, the ratings aren't as high with an average rating of 3.5, but there were only around 150 total reviews of Bright Cellars at the time of this review. However, if you look at the reviews on the Bright Cellars site, there are over 600,000 5-star reviews from verified customers. We recommend taking these with a grain of salt as they are featured on the site for a reason, but the feedback is impressive.

Reviews are mixed

Happy customers note that buying from Bright Cellars has been a "great experience." Multiple customers enjoyed the algorithm at Bright Cellars, noting that the company "understands their palette" better than other wine clubs they tried. On the other hand, customers who weren't as satisfied said the wines weren't impressive and that they didn't feel worth the price. Others noted that there was mold in their bottles, which was concerning overall.

Worth trying despite some poor feedback

Bright Cellars provides a convenient and customizable wine-buying experience. Because there have been some negative reviews including some of those concerns being mold in bottles, we can't rate Bright Cellars as high as some of its features deserve. However, there are a lot of great things to enjoy with Bright Cellars, so it might still be worth checking out.