Wine Express Review

Wine Express...
The Wine Enthusiast's Wine Club

As one of the Wine Enthusiast companies, Wine Express enjoys a good reputation for knowing how to select their wine. After all, their sister company the Wine Enthusiast magazine is one of the world's leading wine magazines, setting trends and rating wines from all over the world.

Quality Over Quantity

I have to say that, for such preceding credentials, I was not impressed by the variety of their selection. Featuring mostly wines from California and France (about 80 from each region), they displays a meager selection of Australian, Italian, and Spanish wines, and less than 20 from all other regions combined.

However, there may be a reason that they feature few wines... they are simply choosing QUALITY over QUANTITY.

I loved the way they included not only their own (Wine Enthusiast) magazine's ratings in the description of each wine, but also ratings from Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate. Basically, what this online wine store is offering is that rare thing: wine ratings you can trust.

I was particularly impressed by the way Wine Express also includes customer reviews of the wines. These, I can assure you, are not filtered, as I was able to find one wine with only one customer review claiming it had given him a stomach pain. :-)

To me, seeing this is a total selling point. It means that the people running this wine club do not need to lie to you or produce embellished reviews of all of their products.

I have yet to find a more serious and reliable wine club.

Membership & Pricing

This wine club offers four 3 bottles/month wine plans, namely, Italian, reds, whites, and connoisseur plans. Monthly charges for these options range from $50 to $80. On the other hand, they have a mixed two bottle plan for $30 and a mixed 6 bottle case for $90.

As for the quality of their club selections, I did a random check on some of their last months' offerings and I have to say, the wines had received from very good to excellent ratings from customers.

Shipping & Delivery

Wine Express has a fixed shipping charge of $1.95 per bottle. This includes careful individual packaging, etc. Unfortunately, they cannot ship to Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire or Utah.

That Extra Flair

One of my favorite things about this wine club is its video tastings' section.

Though it is not available for all of their wines, it is offered for quite a few of them. If you see a video camera icon under a wine description, you can watch a video of prestigious wine expert Josh Farrell, tasting the wine of your choice.

I singled this feature out, because I believe it is a great opportunity to vicariously experience the wine, even before you buy it. That is, to my mind, a unique service, as far as online wine clubs are concerned.

Online Reputation

Wine Express is a Bizrate.com certified store. This means that it allows customers to provide feedback to BizRate.com directly at the point-of-sale check-out. In other words, they care about your feedback.

This business has been rated by over 5,000 customers at Bizrate.com, the result being a rating of GOOD (3 out of 4 points).

The Wine Enthusiast Inc Company, which actually runs this wine club, has a rating of B at the Better Business Bureau; 19 customer complaints were reported over the last 36 months. They responded satisfactorily to all of them, except for one; hence the B rating, where the top rating is A+.

Comparatively, Wine Express seems to have an excellent customer service, offering a quick response to customer complaints and related issues. Combined with the high standards of their wine selection, this makes them one of the best online wine clubs of America.

Our Rating

Quality of Selection:
Value for Money:
Customer Service:
Our Overall Rating: