Bright Cellars

The wines are delivered on time with good customer service. Nice Experience. Really Highly recommended.

I had read online about how some customers suspected that Bright Cellars is simply a larger company that owns several smaller wineries that make subpar wine and use those wines as the basis for their supply. I was skeptical of this, owing it to pretentious wine drinkers who perhaps expected a bit too much. But after trying a shipment of wines myself, I'd have to say that they sound right.

I got four bottles. The first one I tried was "Wandering Giants." It was a mediocre wine with an okay up front flavor but absolutely no development or aftertaste. A $10 bottle at best, and that's being unfair to most $10 bottles I've tried...

Next was Vanishing Act. Appropriate name because after I tried one sip, it vanished down my sink! Strong fruity note up front, like biting into fresh fruit, but faded into that generic rotten grapes aftertaste with no complexity or development.

Then I tried Supergenre, one of the bottles that EVERYONE seems to pair with regardless of the answer on the survey. It was actually an okay wine! Some tanins up front, decent flavor but no development or complexity.

Finally I tried the wine that was my "best match." I'll give them points for that given that it was the best wine out of the bunch, but not a bottle I'd pay more than $10 for.

Overall the wines given were mediocre, lacked depth or flavor, and are basically throwaway shelf fillers that work better as cooking wines than drinking wines. And I don't think you join a wine club to cook with your wines...

Pros:
- Perhaps the algorithm they use to predict what wines you like actually works.
- Getting your wine delivered to you is very, very cool.

Cons
- Not a good value at all
- Qualify of wines does not justify the price tag
- Potentially shady business practices

Overall I would recommend going to your local liquor store and buying four different kinds of wines you've never tried before every month instead of paying for this.

I joined in late March after receiving a promo link from a friend. Wine delivered to my door during this crummy time, "wine not", I thought.

I placed my order, excited, but after further thought tried to cancel the next day. With COVID, I reassessed and thought it might be best to skip extras like this until I could see how things shook out. When I emailed this time, I got a response -- unfortunately, you have 24 hours to cancel after placing the order or they won't honor. I was at hour 25 when I reached out. Being totally honest with myself, I wasn't totally bummed by this but it felt like a strange customer experience. No biggie. I'll still try it while requesting to cancel the account from future orders.

The first shipment was really late. I received probably close to 30 different emails at different times saying my order had shipped (it had not after further clarifying with a rep). I got wine and cheese pairings. The cheese arrived several days before the wine. Nothing amazing or to write home about.

Time went by. I got another email saying my next order was about to place which, after being told I was canceled. Odd. Things happen. I emailed the rep and they seemingly took care of it. Another few days went by and to my surprise, I see I've got another email saying my order was placed and ready to ship soon. And friends, this is where it went south.

I sent several emails over the course of a week asking for the account to be shut down and the order canceled and refunded. I called 3 times, left voicemails... the whole 9 yards. I had been GHOSTED by a company that at this point, wrongfully told me twice that I've been canceled. Eventually, I was able to get a rep on Instagram of all places... they supposedly canceled the account but I won't hold my breath after still not hearing back from a single email or voicemail; it's been probably a full week. A simple apology would've gone a long way. This experience has surely soured my taste for their service and I will not be back. 0/10 - do not recommend. Choose another service out there and save yourself the trouble, as once you're a member, it's impossible to cancel.

WHATEVER YOU DO DONT BUY FROM BRIGHT CELLARS!. Go for wine awesomeness or something because they are HORRIBLE. I've never been so annoyed. I put in an order for wine and cheese 3 weeks before my event that I was giving. First off I work mornings so I just had my wine shipped to my office which doesn't open till 10am but they attempted to deliver the package at 9am twice and stopped attempting to ship it all together. The last attempted to ship the wine the truck showed up and it was never delivered because "the wine was on the manifest but the package wasn't on the truck". They never tried to deliver it again. Then once the cheeses were shipped I tracked it for 3 days and when it finally was delivered I saw they had it delivered and sent back to the sender! Why, I have no idea but I cannot make this up! After I called customer service they reshipped the cheese and wine but the cheese showed up and the wine never did. I had to go out and buy wine from in store for my event! So I called and asked for a refund for the wines since I had been calling and things still couldn't be figured out but then they tell me there's a $25 nonrefundable fee! Bull$#*! right? I payed $86 but saido well just refund me the amount minus the 25. When the refund came through I was only refunded half the amount and I called them days ago to see where the rest of my refund is and I'm still waiting! Do NOT buy from bright cellars, save yourself the headache I promise wine awesomeness is better.