Linnea G.

I've canceled my subscription after a polite, lengthy exchange with one of the concierges about how Bright Cellars selects their wines. I was taken aback by how frequently I would receive wines from the same label (not the same exact wine, but like a pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, red blend, etc. etc. All from the same label). I'd only been a subscriber for about 6 months and had gotten as many as 6 wines from one label already, which wasn't the variety I was expecting.

Then the concierge explained that the labels on each bottle of wine aren't labels from wineries at all, but are labels devised BY BRIGHT CELLARS to market the wine that they source NOT from "small wineries around the world" like the website says, but from a supplier called AWDirect. Let me explain what the concierge explained to me, with quotes from our conversation, so you know what you're getting:

- First, AWDirect receives the wines from a "wine supplier or maker" (meaning, I presume, this supplier could be many more steps removed from the actual vineyard producing the wine).
- Then AWDirect cultivates and ages the wine "with their own processes," sending perioc samples to Bright Cellars for evaluation. BC can "request adjustments be made to certain wines if we would like to see more specific flavors."
- When BC is satisfied with AWDirect's product, they label the wines under various Bright Cellars labels such as Forty Winks, Burrasca, Folk & Fable, or Castele de Varao (the labels themselves don't reference BC, which I find very suspicious... why not be transparent about who is labeling the wines?). They determine which label to use based on region, and "can slightly alter the way they taste to fit that brand's description... Since we have the ability to alter the wines slightly we're able to make them taste similar."
- Then BC ships us our boxes of wine that we think are sourced directly from small vineyards around the world, but have in fact been passed from one supplier to another, aged and altered by multiple different handlers, and adjusted by BC to apparently fit our tastes better.

I don't know about you, but that isn't what I signed up for.