Bright Cellars

So I haven't ordered yet because I did research, and I'm here to share my research because it seems to me that people should know what they're paying for. I can't find anywhere else to post this, so here we go. I never take a business at face value when they say they're saving me money. I googled each wine they suggested for me and noticed a few strange things about the "wineries" that offered these wines.

First of all: there was no actual address or names given in the contact section of each winery's site. A real winery will proudly display where they are at, and who to contact.

Second: Every website for each wine looked nearly identical. Even the price was identical, with free shipping on 6+ bottles of wine.

And third: The privacy policy listed an address at the very bottom of each winery's page, and it was the exact same address as Bright Cellars.

That's right. Bright Cellars is pretending to sell you hand picked wines from different wineries, but really it's just their wine with a different label and website. As a wine enthusiast, it seems to me that this is cheating the consumer out of the true experience of wine: history, authenticity, and diversity.

Furthermore: If you take them up on their offer of 5 wines for $38, that drops the price of each bottle down to $7.60. Sure, once in a while you can get good wines for that price. The undiscovered underdogs tilling away in their vineyards alongside family to make a mark in the world based on passion alone. To produce good wine. These are the guys who surprise you with their bottle of $8 wine in the grocery store.

Bright Cellars? We don't know where the grapes come from, who the vintner is, or even what kind of barrel was used. It doesn't seem like that big of a leap to me to assume that their wine, at $7.60 a bottle, won't be that good, and I can see the other reviewers who forked over their hard earned cash tend to agree.

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 signed up for a wine delivery due to a deal I got. My wife and I enjoyed the wine we received, but it took forever for us to get it. My card was charged more than 2 weeks before our wine was delivered, and shipping itself only took 3 days. The website made it clear that it could take 7 business days to ship the wine due to COVID, but it took a fair bit longer than that. They are quite happy to take your money, but don't deliver in an reasonable time.

Customer service was pretty responsive when it came to quelling my frustration about the wine not getting shipped. After sending them an e-mail (it's that or phone) to cancel my subscription, however, I got no response. I can no longer log into my account on the site, so with no confirmation I can just assume that they've cancelled it. If not, they can expect a dispute.

I would love to use this service, EXCEPT I don't want an auto renew-I want to order when I want! The wine is just average wine, but I would still do it IF (like I said), I could make orders when I wanted. They also don't offer an easy option to cancel which I wasn't fond of.

Seriously, make this service available to people who maybe don't drink that much wine and just want to try something fun and different occasionally and not spend money every month on an autoship.

What initially sold me on this monthly box was the promise that I could skip any month. This is not true. There's no indication anywhere on their website, outside of the initial advertisement, of any way to skip. Cancelling requires personally contacting one of their "wine concierges." I got phone calls asking if I'd like to buy cases of any wines I gave positive reviews. I received hand-addressed letters inviting me to drag me friends into it. So far, I haven't been more than lukewarm towards any of their recommendations, despite their so-called "wine algorithm." Skip it, unless you drink a lot of wine and have the cash to spare.

Brightcellers implies that it's easy to cancel the service, and what that *should* mean in the online world is clicks, not phone calls. To cancel you do have to manage to get a hold of them between the hours of 9 to 5 central time, M - F (so, while most people are working). Either be upfront that canceling isn't easy and customers are put through a sales pitch or simply make it possible to cancel online like EVERY SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE.

I've really enjoyed the wine but won't be using the company again or recommending it to friends because I find these tactics deceitful.

I was a member of Bright Cellars for 5 months.

Three months I was happy with my wine. In month 4, I received a bottle that was spoiled. I emailed and explained, and Bright Cellars offered to send a replacement bottle. Awesome, but this was a month away.

The following month, another spoiled bottle. Unwilling to continue down this path, I attempted to
Cancel my subscription. This took six (yes, six) emails and almost two weeks. Absolutely infuriating. In addition, the process between payment and reviewing the product was over 2 weeks. Overall, I would rather go to the store and purchase wine.$80/month for 4 bottles and the stress just wasn't worth it.

While I am perfectly happy with the wine my one star review comes from the misleading nature of the subscription service. I subscribed in August and received my shipment. As I was out of town the majority of the month I have not even touched my first order. I then received notice that I have another shipment on the way without so much as "hey guess what you have more wine coming" email. I checked the website to see if I could cancel. At the top of the account page it lists that they are available for account changes M-F seeing that I didn't receive my shipping notification until Saturday I waited patiently until Monday and called during business hours. I was dutifully notified by a very sorry customer service agent that there was nothing to be done and they can only make changes to a shipment within 24 hours of the email notification. Considering that I am calling during first available hours as you are not open Sunday I was shocked to learn that I was out of luck. In conclusion NOTIFY your customers of upcoming shipments and UPDATE your hours online. It was rather annoying learn that Bright Cellars is staffed during the weekend and the M-F hours are a formality. Will not use again.

I was super excited when I saw this advertisement. I took the super short quiz and received some recommendations that meshed so-so with my actual wine preferences.
Four bottles for $60 + shipping is an average deal, at best. That comes out to $17/bottle. My quiz results came with good descriptions of the taste notes (whites were right on, reds were not) and was impressed by the points next to the wines. And that is where things started to break down.
I didn't believe I was getting a 95pt wine for $15. And I wasn't. Their "points" are actually match to your taste profile. Not by wine spectator, wine enthusiast or any other semi-reputable reviewers.
I then checked how much the bottle would actually cost me if I bought it on my own - $12. Yeah, I'll just go ahead and save the extra ~$5/bottle you're charging me. ANYONE at a half-decent grocery with wine could match you as well as their search does.
If their search had the ability to enter taste preferences (e.g. "I dislike oak-chardonnays" or even vaguer "I like crisp whites") I think this would be better. I'm able to articulate a little about my taste preference beyond "Ew! Don't ever send me reds"

Bottom line: over priced for what you get. For people who know little about wine and like getting subscription services

I am actually in the process of having my account cancelled and the reason I am doing so is because the subscription just isn't worth it. As someone who has not really explored the different types of wines, it was nice to try new things, but I could do that by going and picking out new wines myself. I did not find their selections for me to be that great, I honestly think they just send out whatever they have and say you were matched for it. And one of the bottles I got cost $7 at Specs and with this subscription I was paying $15 per bottle. And you can tell that many of the wines they send are cheap wines. So not that it is the most awful thing I have ever tried, but it is definitely not worth the cost when there are better wine subscription companies out there. The only things I really liked were the fun stickers and packaging on the bottles, the cool labels on some of the bottles, and the customer service was great for me as well. Now lets see if it is still great when I try to cancel...