Wine clubs/subscriptions

Cellarmasters is a Woolworths company, and these are some documented Woolworths (and Coles, and Aldi, and …) labels. Some labels are vineyards but others are just labels on mass produced wines. Many are also featured at other popular Woolworths outlets like Dan Murphy’s or BWS. Cellarmasters have packed their ‘Woolworths Shareholders’ offers with their house labels and those house labelled bottles have been very good to excellent for the most part but as you wrote, regional variety can be hit and miss (and loaded with house labels making knowledgeable selections opaque).

Another Cellarmaster feature is that if you don’t buy for a while the $25 voucher will become a $50 voucher :wink:

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I belong to Naked Wines Australia, which has been mentioned in a comment above. I love it a lot. I contribute $40 per month, which is then is deducted from my next order. If you buy a dozen bottles of wine or more on a monthly basis, you also receive a free bottle of wine from the nominated wine of that month.

Naked Wines has a commitment to supporting independent Australian (and New Zealand) wine-makers, and also includes some overseas wine-makers as well, but the priority is to our local wine-makers. I really believe in their ethos and ethic.
Naked Wines Australia has grown enormously over the last few years, and has a great range of wines to try. It is a social online organisation, so we can interact with the wine-makers through their own comments as well as our own responses to their wines, as well as noting and responding to comments from the other ‘Angels’ who purchase the wines.

I have learned such a lot about wines and wine-making since I joined Naked Wines, and love the range and quality of wines that I can buy at incredibly reasonable prices. Naked Wines is a professional and committed company that is certainly a win-win for me.

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I am also a huge fan of Naked Wines, since joining about 5 years ago.
There is a win/win reality here - great wines at exceptionally good prices made by small independent winemakers (so we can help people achieve their dreams - and thumb our noses at Colesworth too!)
Living in regional Australia I also love the quick efficient and cheap delivery - in complete contrast to the bigger clubs, and the main reason I stopped using wine clubs originally.
The direct interaction with the winemakers and other Naked Wines customers (“Angels”) is something that sets Naked Wines well apart from the others.
It works in a similar fashion to Facebook and is a great opportunity to get involved, particularly for someone like me who passionate about wine as a hobby, and has an intense dislike for most other social media platforms.
Naked Wines is highly recommended for the wine aficionado and the beginner alike.

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Those of you who are Naked Wines ‘Angels’, would you be happy to elaborate on your experiences with them? When you first purchased from them, were you aware of the $40/month charge?
I’ve read quite a few reviews of NW from disgruntled customers who thought they were making a one-off purchase but then discovered that NW was debiting $40/month from their accounts. There are plenty of mentions of the $40/month charge on the NW website, but I’ve been through the purchase process and there’s no mention of it whatsoever at the checkout - it appears that you’re just making a one-off purchase, not consenting to a recurring payment. (Several CHOICE staffers were caught out by this too.)
There seem to be plenty of very happy NW customers out there, and as far as we know NW is happy to refund the charges if you query it, but we’re a little concerned that the way it’s laid out is quite misleading.
The ACCC has cracked down on a few companies for using dodgy ‘subscription trap’ models (https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-warns-consumers-to-beware-of-subscription-traps) and we’re trying to determine whether NW is breaching the Australian Consumer Law by not making it clear that by purchasing from them you’re consenting to a recurring payment.
Very interested to hear everyone’s thoughts!
Ping @petawilliams @Kpike @SteveT

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Hi Alice,
I first heard about Naked Wines through an article by Huon Hooke in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2013, so was fully aware of the $40 p.m. charge when I visited the web site to check it out.
I liked what I saw and decided to join up and give them a try.
My memory is a bit dim (well, it WAS over five years ago!) but I can recall being told at some stage during the sign-up process that I was committing for $40 p.m. to be an Angel, but that I could opt out at any time, which was fair enough.
Then my first order arrived (with three free bottles as a surprise welcome gift) and I was won over from that point with the quality and value on offer, with the free monthly bottle being the icing on the cake.
I have had a wonderful journey with Naked Wines so far, and long may it continue.
Regards
Steve

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Thanks for the discussion and comments everyone. You can read @AliceRichard’s article here :wine_glass:

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OT I am happy to report what may be the first .community blind date, between @Guitarfish and myself and our partners. It was obviously going to be good when all four of us discerning individuals showed with our Tilley hats on a brilliant afternoon at the Panton Hill Vineyard.

Re topic, it was confirmed Panton Hill have neither a wine club nor subscription service, just very nice wine and hospitality at a unique venue. :wine_glass::wine_glass::pizza::wine_glass::wine_glass::pizza::pizza::cheese::baguette_bread::coffee::coffee::coffee::coffee:

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I’m going to call this one as your hat:

image

… and you had a hat, and I had a hat … we both had hats … be careful !! :wink: :wink:

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Fail. Only three guesses remain :wink:

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Different hat to the other pic I’ve seen then … damn … :slight_smile:

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Last post as we are waaaay OT and our bad. Mine is ~30 years old but if we lined them up I doubt most would pick it. FWIW the one you picked is a recent product as evidenced by the external tag.

edit:

I do have more than one :slight_smile:

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If you are in the Northern Territory, delivery of alcoholic beverages changed on 1 October 2018.

https://justice.nt.gov.au/regulatory-services/licensing-boards,-committees-and-advisory-councils/liquor-commission/interstate-liquor-retailers

Many don’t see this as an issue, as evidenced by the “List of registered interstate retailers” at the bottom of the page referenced above. None the less, and not excusing the reactive socialists currently in charge of ‘the Territory’, some vendors have given up, for example:

More to follow I’m sure. We are a small market after all …

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Almost “Prohibitionist” in it’s action. While I understand the desire to curtail over consumption of alcohol in certain demographics and thwart somewhat the abuse of “dry” communities, the limiting of choice is not really effective but is just what I think is somewhat discriminatory. Perhaps a sign of regulation for the sake of regulation rather than any real answer to the issues.

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OT, but. I characterise the regulation as another ill advised attempt to try something, anything, to be seen to be taking on the traditional paternalistic burden without understanding (or trying to understand) the complexities of the problem supposedly being solved.

There is a segment of voters who find regulation (only of others!) appealing as compared to what they perceive as ever more free handouts and softly softly programs that might over time be far more productive. Evidence? Why? There is long and ignoble history behind it, fueled by political cynicism and interpreted by some under the belief all of life should be judged as if it originated from Sydney CBD with many centuries of common values and cultural precepts.

The smart ones understand that is the key to failure. The less smart ones often have the keys to the policies. The really smart ones understand the complexity and seek evidence based alternatives that may have worked even a bit, somewhere in the world, to mitigate similar societal problems, or are measured enough to have a go that does not replicate a previously failed ‘solution’.

(Many straight lies above, for others to run with if they so desire.)

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Use to use wine clubs but prefer to buy when I want. I do buy online but it is usually because I have bought the wine before. Also they offer free delivery which means I don’t have to struggle carrying them home.

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I receive possibly an invitation to join a wine club at least once a month (either by email or post). I chose not to join them.

The reasons for not joining them is:

  • I enjoy seeing and selecting from a range of wines rather than someone else doing this on my behalf. If I buy a wine/grape variety I don’t enjoy, I make a mental note not to buy it again in the future. Doing this with most wine clubs is not possible.
  • If I enjoy a particular wine I have purchased, I often then buy more and store for future enjoyment. Most wine clubs don’t allow one to to this.
  • Some wine clubs send members wine regularly, even if one doesn’t not really need it. The flexibility of buying to meet ones own demand does not exist to the same level with wine clubs.

In the past I have bought wine either direct from the winemaker, through online websites or from retail outlets. Retail outlets being the dominate purchase method.

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I joined “The Wine Society” many years ago. There is no fee to join or remain a member. Each 6 weeks or so they send a magazine by post with the latest selections, and there are many to choose from.

However, I opted for a regular 6 weekly delivery. There are 2 different regular lists, 1. Quaffing Wines and 2. Premium wines. I now go for the premium wines, and selected “Shiraz or Shiraz blends”. They choose the latest options for your nominated requirements.

For quaffing wines, I buy from “The Friendly Grocers”, where a dozen Shiraze or white wines costs $60 a dozen. These wines are great value.

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A little OT - but it relates to delivery of subscriptions for those of us in Saudi Arabia, ahem sorry, the Northern Territory …

Indeed - it’s political facade (is that a tautology?) to make people think they are doing something good - in a place where it is legal to racially discriminate when advertising employment, it is not legal to target the problem demographic when it is defined by race - rather interesting really.

In the NT, we:

  • are required to show photo identification whenever purchasing alcohol that is checked against the banned drinker register. Interstate and overseas visitors are required to show driver licence or passport, otherwise no sale.

  • have bottle shops and pubs constantly staffed by police who can interrogate on a range of questions including the intended location of consumption, demand identification and refuse service.

  • have a floor price of $1.30 per standard drink, so an 8 standard drink bottle of red is a minimum of $10.40, regardless of it’s quality (I don’t remember when I last bought a bottle that cheap, but the bottom line is - anecdotally - people just pay more and the problem erodes further into other household spending).

  • imminent plans to automatically cross reference purchases with dollar amount limits placed on what you can purchase per day ($200 has been mentioned) before plod pays a visit to your home to see if you are doing something wrong.

Yes there is a big problem, but it seems they haven’t learned anything from the people who’ve tried prohibition-type draconian laws in the past.

The interstate seller legislation wasn’t well publicised - my inquiries into the services I deal with indicate that online sellers, spirit and wine clubs, etc in other states were not all aware of the new laws. I’d guess many still aren’t.

Thankfully both of my favourites are now on the approved list :joy:

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I received a marketing email from this organisation today:

https://justwines.com.au/

I have registered on their site some time back, with both a billing and delivery address in the Northern Territory.

When I visited their site - it displays the following:

image

Supporting Aussie wineries while asking for my birthday in month-day-year format? really? but I digress …

They’ve kept it simple? great news! but isn’t dividing the regions into “places we deliver to”, “places we don’t deliver to”, “Metro” and “Non-Metro” four (4) broad categories? which from memory is bigger then two (2) by about double … :rofl:

With things differing in ‘conjunctions’ and trying to comply with legislation in some place called “Northern Terrority” they really have their work cut out. Depending on the location of course, “it” might take longer. I have that problem in my regional areas as well, but again we digress …

How about not sending promotional email to registered users who have a delivery address you refuse to deliver to?

I hate to think how safe customers private data is with these people … one I will avoid forever more.

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Maybe they hope you will be sending holidays gifts to ‘friends in Melbourne’ where they are happy to deliver. :smiley:

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