Bright Cellars

I enjoy opening my monthly package - not to mention the wine. The packaging is excellent. I've received a box dented in shipping, but the contents was well packed and intact. Love the stickers placed on the tissue wrapped bottles! I also appreciate the educational piece included in each package. The variety of wines is helping me to hone my likes and dislikes. I also like the opportunity to rate the wine and earn points! I would recommend this service - not just because I would get points for doing so!

I used this company for two months, and overall I enjoyed the wines they gave me (they even got me interested in white wines which I previously avoided), but they were nothing special. For my first order they had a $30 off special plus a bonus bottle, which was awesome - I ended up getting 5 bottles for ~$40. I canceled my subscription because the usual price of 4 bottles for ~$70 was too much for me to justify spending on wine that wasn't worth the price.

I didn't have any issues when cancelling an order or when I canceled my account altogether, but this company is still a bit shady. When I first signed up for a trial shipment I was careful to read the Terms & Agreements, which never stated that I was agreeing to a monthly subscription. The website is clever in that it does not have you make an account, so you can't check up on this unless you call. I received no email communications about signing up for a monthly subscription, so I decided to wait and see if I got any notifications for the next month. Lo and behold I'm sent one on July 4 saying my order (that I didn't place) has been shipped already and my card charged. There was no email warning before this, and since they notified me on a holiday I couldn't reach anyone on the phone. They did answer the next day and agreed to refund the full amount. Though I didn't mention that I was, they gave me a very rehearsed line about how it "sounds like you were taken off guard by this shipment, would you like an email in advance next time?" Apparently they are expecting this call from their customers, which indicates that they do this deliberately.

Also I looked up the "White Willow" brand of whites that we got, and it has absolutely zero online presence. They must re-label some of their wines with a fake name, which was another reason why I canceled. Too much shadiness for one experience.

I only got into this as someone gave me a $150 gift card. After all sorts of run-around trying to pick wines and use the gift card, turns out that you have to give them your credit card info, even when you have money left in the gift card. I might have done it (1) I wasn't so irritated already and (2) I had my purse with me. The swapping out process is very limited, there are no prices disclosed at any point during the process.

Bright Cellars borders on consumer fraud. Seriously. They are walking a very thin line.

Here is the truth. They purchase cheap bulk wine from around the world and bottle it under their many labels. All of their wines (yes, all of their wines) are their wines. None of these wines are from independent "great find" wineries. As an avid wine collector I tried their subscription service and found their wines to be on par with $6 to $7 dollar bottles of wine. And it's not a surprise, simply look at their employee list on their website. No one is a wine expert, just a bunch of software engineers and wine "concierge" (sales people). https://www.brightcellars.com/about-us/our-team/

These guys are taking advantage of people who want to learn about wines but don't know where to start. Best thing to do is find the local wine merchant in your town. I guarantee their wine guy or gal will know 10x's what Bright Cellars knows and will introduce you to amazing wines.

Simply put, buyer beware.

I have tried multiple times to cancel my membership. I have called them, texted them, emailed them and when I called. They assured me that they would cancel my membership but I was charged for the following month but didn't receive any wine. I even had the confirmation email to confirm that I canceled. So i took an old rewards debit card and put that as my payment information. So that I won't have to worry about them stealing my money.

I was worried I couldn't get wine delivered to my state, but it turned out I could. I got a nice discount and Hannelore helped me cancel my subscription, as I just wanted to try one box. I'm excited to try the wine soon!

I tried to use Bright Cellars to arrange a family Zoom-based wine/cheese tasting, mailing identical sets to 6 parties. I started planning this months in advance, first with Hanna, who sent me to Kevin who sent me to Maria. Somehow, they managed to omit the order to my daughter in CA. Having planned the shipments to go out nearly 2 weeks in advance, I was not yet alarmed, and I immediately drew this to their attention.

Over 50 emails later (including multiple assurances that all was well, when it clearly was not), my daughter's shipments did not arrive in time.

If you are thinking of using Bright Cellars for an "experience", I suggest slamming your genitals in a car door. The "experience" is similar, but you can make sure it happens on time.

Once they tank as a wine subscription service, they should become a marketing company. Because that's all they are. They play to your intrigue, try to claim some legitimacy in their "matching" formula, and charge you $15 for something they get for $1.

No joke, if the price were exactly the same, I'd still rather drink the $3 from Trader Joe's.

Absolutely, positively do not waste your time. Do not throw away your hard-earned cash.

While the wines sent are a mix of 1-2 super cheap, 1-2 more decent tier, and one $15-20 bottle, the average cost you are paying per bottle is $15/bottle which is much to overpriced for the wine you're getting (hence, my docking one star). Other than that, I love the company because they're easy to use, deliver good wines, and are very easy to get in touch with -- anytime I want to alter my subscription (I currently have it set to every three months), I just shoot them an email and it's done! The combination of customer service and getting to try decent new wines is honestly what keeps me using them.

The wine was fine, nothing special.

The big problem is the shady customer service. There is no easy option to cancel or skip deliveries on the site. I am in the process of trying to cancel my account, and I have now gone back and forth with one of their "concierges" multiple times, as he attempts to get me to stay. Jeez! Just let a girl cancel! After reading some of the reviews, I'm tempted to alert my credit card company not to authorize future charges...

An adult 21+ years of age or older needs to sign for this delivery, so I had my former shipped to my friend's office where somewhere is always available during the day.

After several false notifications from Bright Cellars that my order was "out for delivery", my order never arrived. It was always one excuse after the other. So, I finally asked them to cancel the order. Bright Cellars then informs me they will charge me $25 to return the wine I never received! I would avoid this company based on their awful customer service. I cannot speak about the wine, as I never received it. Disappointing!

Cheese is a way overpriced, Service is unhelpful, Canceling is hard, Return is impassable, wine is mediocre.
Don't recommend.
I was ordering 6 bottles of wines with a groupon promotion for about $50, when a pop up window with a cheese for wine offer appeared. There were information about 4 sorts of cheese which cost $45 without any volume mentioned. I supposed that I will receive not the cheapest cheese, but approximately in the price range of Whole Food and imaged its amount. When I received these 4 tiny pieces of store package cheese with a total wight of 25 oz, I tried to return it immediately. For that price I could by 3 times of that volume of high quality cheese in Whole Foods. After my second email a concierge said that I can't return the good because of bright cellars policy. Since it's against the law I complied by Consumers Department and waiting for results.

They market their wines as "unique" until you actually do some research and find out that their Imported Wine is actually just a marketing hype. They are more of a Marketing Company and I would not be surprised of the wines they send out are all the same, with just different labels. We have had better $5 bottles from Trader Joes. Sad, we were taken in by their "matching" algorithm, and had hopes for some decent wines, the ones we tried were almost undrinkable. Would not recommend this service at all.