Which Wine Store is the Best? It's 5 o'clock somewhere, and wherever you're located, shopping for the right wine can be a wonderful way to relax at the end of a long day. Whether you're looking for a perfect pairing to go with dinner or searching for a gift to surprise your in-laws, there's always an occasion for wine. And, it's no wonder wine is a favorite. It's been around for thousands of years.
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Naked Wines is a wine store known for its subscription plan. For a monthly fee of $40, you cover the costs of talented independent winemakers supported by Naked Wines. Since opening in 2008, Naked Wines has used the help of customers (who they call "Angels") to invest in 159 indie winemakers across 14 countries. What do you get out of the deal? Exclusive wines at extremely discounted prices (up to 60% off). Each one is selected by one of the Naked Wines on-staff sommeliers, so you know you're getting top quality with details on notes, the winery where the wine was created, and more. Plus, if you don't want to be an Angel, the site offers wine at full price to enjoy Naked Wines' services without any commitment.
502 wines with some from 2016
The selection at Naked Wines is based on the careful work of the in-house experts. They taste over 10,000 wines to create tasting cases of six bottles for you, and the individual offerings on Naked Wines are all carefully selected for top-quality flavors from independent wineries. At the time of our review, there were 502 different wines on Naked Wines. You can find dessert and fortified wines, reds, rosés, whites, and sparkling wine. To break it down a little, there are 302 flavors and styles of red, 21 rosés, and 141 white wines across the site. You'll find wines from Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and many more. The majority of Naked Wines' selection is from the United States, and the earliest vintage we found was in 2016.
Can take a minute to find the wines
The Naked Wines site is a little harder to browse than some of its competitors. The main landing page is designed to advertise the Angel subscription program, and at first, it can be hard to find the page to browse individual bottles of wine. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see a small link titled "Our Wines," and you can easily start browsing all of the Naked Wines options from there. Once you get to the browsing window, it's much easier to shop. There are plenty of helpful filters to narrow wine by country, style, grape type, price, alcohol content, and particular winemakers. However, we did have some trouble on certain browsers getting the filters to load. So, if you run into similar problems, try using an alternate browser. If you are not an Angel member, you'll see the full-price costs on each listing, and you do need to meet a minimum order of 6 bottles to complete your purchase.
Prices from $11.99 to $229.99
We've already covered the Angel membership fee which is $40 per month. If you subscribe, you'll see up to 60% off deals on every case you order. If you choose not to subscribe, the bottles will be sold at full-price. We did our price comparison with the full-price costs. To get accurate numbers against other wine stores, we looked at the price ranges for red wine, white wine, and rosé. We also found the top vintage sold by Naked Wines. Here's what we found:
Free shipping to many states
The cost of shipping will vary slightly depending on how much wine you buy. Naked Wines promises to include the cost of shipping in larger packages, but there may be a $9.99 charge to cover order fulfillment costs. We did a test order to see how the costs show up in practice, and for Florida, shipping for one case of wine (the required 6-bottle minimum order) was already free. There were four states where this wasn't the case; in Michigan and Indiana, shipping costs $29.99. Shipment to Alaska is $130 per package and to Hawaii is $70 per package.
100% guarantee for store credit
Naked Wines are 100% guaranteed according to the wine store's company policies. This means Naked Wines promises you'll love every wine or they will add a store credit to your account for the value of the wine you don't like. However, the only recourse appears to be store credit so you can try a different wine from Naked Wines. A full refund is not offered by Naked Wines at this time.
An "A" rating isn't everything
There's a lot of news floating around for Naked Wines, but before we dig into the nitty-gritty, here's the good news: Naked Wines currently holds an "A" rating from the Better Business Bureau as well as accreditation. However, that's where the good news ends. The BBB also shows a current alert for Naked Wines stating that there is a known lawsuit from 2022 filed for business marketplace conduct. This was because the Angel program (at that time) was not clearly labeled as a monthly subscription. That issue has since been resolved, though the lack of clarity on where to buy wines outside of the membership program remains an issue on the site. As for feedback, the average rating for Naked Wines is a mid-tier 3 stars out of 5 on Trustpilot and a 1.8-star rating out of 5 on Sitejabber. There are frequent reviews that mention scams and issues with unwanted credit card charges. Further reviews also mentioned "terrible customer service" and orders being canceled for no reason.
Too many complaints to be competitive
Despite some unique opportunities for buying wines around the world, Naked Wines comes in as our lowest-rated site due to the number of concerns from customers. With issues that include unwanted credit card charges, poor customer service, and a limited return policy where you can only get store credit, Naked Wines doesn't stand out as a wine store that supports its customers. For this reason, Naked Wines gets a cautionary note based on recent customer reviews to be careful about giving this company your credit card information.
Continued from above...
It's 5 o'clock somewhere, and wherever you're located, shopping for the right wine can be a wonderful way to relax at the end of a long day. Whether you're looking for a perfect pairing to go with dinner or searching for a gift to surprise your in-laws, there's always an occasion for wine. And, it's no wonder wine is a favorite. It's been around for thousands of years.
The oldest known traces of grape wine production have been found in digs in Georgia (in Europe) that date back to 6000 BC. Wine has been a staple throughout Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and modern times. And it isn't location-specific, either. You can find wines made all over the globe, from the USA to the Middle East, to world-renowned wineries in Italy and France.
With so much history behind wine, it's not such a surprise that there are so many kinds to choose from. Whether you have a staple favorite or you're a burgeoning sommelier hoping to try them all, there are tons of choices from around the world. From Sauvignon Blanc to Merlot, or Chardonnay to Pinot Grigio, there are plenty of flavors, grapes, and vineyards to pick from.
You can even find some unique distilleries like those in Japan that offer Plum Wine or Rice Wine (better known as Sake). Whatever your pleasure, there's wine (or wines) out there just for you. You may never get tired of this longtime favorite boozy beverage. But the trick is finding the best wine store to score those sweet reds, fruity whites, or balanced rosés.
There are tons of places to find good, great, and rare wines, and it can be hard to decide where to start browsing. Whether you're looking to pick out a single bottle or stock your home wine cellar, shopping online can take a lot of the travel worries out of purchasing your favorite flavors. With access to wineries around the world, online wine stores offer a wider variety than at your local shop or a winery that just produces its own vintages. Plus, someone else can do the heavy lifting for you, so if you are buying a case (or two), getting the wine shipped through an online service can save you some sore muscles from moving the bottles from the shelf to the cart to the car.
Now, if your head is spinning from too many options, we've got your back. We get it, the internet is overflowing with wine stores and wines to choose from. How do you pick out the best wine store for your needs? To help you narrow the field (or vineyard, we should say), here are a few factors you can consider:
To help you with your home wine cellar (or maybe just a wine shelf), Top Consumer Reviews has reviewed and ranked today's top wine stores. We hope this helps you sit back, relax, and enjoy a glass or two of your favorite bubbly or fruity vintages. You deserve a little treat. And maybe, you'll be able to try some new flavors or wines you've never considered. Cheers!
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