The online shopping world has exploded of the past 10 year, and the online wine industry is no exception, although it hasn’t happened as quickly as other industries. Skepticism behind buying wine from unknown sources has been the main driver behind the slow uptake of online stores.
However, over time more business have entered the market place and added a large variety of ideas about how to sell wine over the internet. The level and quality of wine being sold has improved as business models have improved. This is not to say that there still aren’t some bad ways to buy wine over the internet.
One of the most dubious ways to buy wine over the net is through online wine auctions houses. Many great deals can be garnered by buying through the auction houses with many wineries and wine companies dumping stock that they cannot sell at bottomed out prices. There is one main problem with this. The companies will generally dump their stock as “cleanskins” (wines without labels) which leaves the consumer with no real idea where they come from apart from wine type and region.
Cleanskins are always fraught with danger as you don’t know exactly what you’re getting, especially if you are unable to try them first. The varietal of wine may match with the region, but the quality of the wine is always anybody’s guess. The next thing to be aware of is how the wines have previously been stored. I have seen many examples of people buying a well known wine at a great value price to later find that most of the bottles are off because they have not been stored correctly. Imagine buying a six pack of well known quality wine worth $50 a bottle for $20 a bottle, then finding only one of them is drinkable
“Affiliate” sites are also starting to creep into the online wine market. These wine stores look like a normal wine store stocking almost any wine you can think of. The problem with these sites is that they don’t stock any wine at all. These sites basically take your order, pass them on to the wineries, wash their hands of it and take a percentage commission.
The best way to pick these types of web sites is by checking their “Shipping/Delivery Information” pages. You will generally find with these sites that most will ask you to check the shipping costs either from the winery themselves or a special shipping page which highlights the costs within the site itself. You are better off finding the wine you like and ordering it directly from the winery themselves as the service levels will be no different and you are supporting the winery directly. If they are smaller wineries, they will appreciate your patronage more so directly than paying an affiliate a commission.

