The Wine Society

[jontysafe]

Hello all, I am thinking of joining. I have never bought wine online before preferring my local wine merchant Caviste in Hungerford. More and more travel is making that difficult though and I would like to be able to look forward to a nice bottle on my return. The selection looks good, albeit French biased, this doesn't worry me as I am probably the same.
It really appeals to be able to sit in a dry country perusing their vast catalogue and putting a case together to look forward to.
Is anyone here a member? It's £40 for a lifetime membership that you can then leave to someone in your will!

Look forward to hearing any experiences?

[V8mate]

Just wondering...what makes you think it's any better than buying wine at a supermarket?

[LooneyTunes]

Been a member for well over a decade and buy most of my near-term quaffers from them. Used to buy much more for the long term, but the way they run En Primeur has led to me placing more of that spend elsewhere.

Good points:
Their storage is excellent and cheap
There's none of this "wine club" rubbish where they send you stuff you don't ask for
Broad range from £5 to the £hundreds
Wine list quite well written
Customer (sorry, member) service is excellent

Bad points:
To get the best out of the list, you need to spend a little time working out what you like and deciphering the language they use
They still have some good deals, but I think the number of these seems to have diminished somewhat in recent years
Seem to be finding less and less with decent age on them in their lists?
Their En Primeur "lottery" is a PITA, and their offers come out rather late
They don't offer In Bond storage
Sometimes feel I miss out by not being able to pick up bin ends from Stevenage
Their current website isn't, IMO, as good as their old one!

Not been to the new shop in France, but the old one used to be excellent.

Would I join again? Yes, I probably would.

[Cheese Mechanic]

V8mate said:

Just wondering...what makes you think it's any better than buying wine at a supermarket?

No phoney "offers" for a start.

Personally, I've heard nothing less than positive about the WS. I know one or two people who are members and the wines
I've sampled from them have been universally above average.

I still cannot work out why I've not joined as yet. Something I must get round to addressing.

[jet_noise]

Dear js,

I've been a member for 20 years or so, never a member/subscriber to any other mail order outlet.
I'd wholeheartedly recommend it.

LT's cavils are the first criticism I've ever seen...
...but I see validity in some points which I hadn't noticed before.

Seem to be finding less and less with decent age on them in their lists?
Isn't this down to the Chinese buying it all
Their En Primeur "lottery" is a PITA, and their offers come out rather late
I rather like the randomness of this and I can't recall when I haven't had my choices in all that time. Perhaps I just don't choose the best stuff!
Their current website isn't, IMO, as good as their old one!
I remember when it was all fields round here

Anyway I really like that it is a pull system - you only get what you order.
I really like the new finds offers, although I agree there does seem to be less of these. The wine market is so much more competitive than it used to be perhaps,

regards,
Jet

[Cheib]

I buy wine in the £5 to £30 a bottle catgeory (mostly towards the lower end of that). I think the customer service is excellent and the selection of wines is good....I don't think their pricing is cheap it's generally "about right"....not taking the p1ss like plenty of wine merchants do.

Once thing I do think is excellent is that if you have say five or six cases of wine in storage with them you can ask them to deliver a mixed case made up of those wines rather than a case of each wine as you would from a normal storage facility. That's a big plus and a key selling point for me as I don't have the ability to store a lot of wine at home.

A lot of the wine I buy is ready to drink in say three to five years, my view is that it's considerably cheaper to do it this way than by the bottle from a local shop if you can afford to have the money tied up. I get to enjoy wine that's considerably better than if I wondered along to my local shop for the same cost per bottle.

[GWC]

My wife buys quite a bit from them and it is generally all nice stuff (whatever your budget) the service is efficient and they have good tasting events too.

[alfa pint]

I buy a lot from them. They're very reasonably priced for some excellent wines, predominantly French based with a good batch of other European stuff and the best of the New World.

Service is very good and the staff are knowledgeable. They're a lot better than any of the other wine providers I've used in the past.

[LooneyTunes]

jet_noise said:

Their En Primeur "lottery" is a PITA, and their offers come out rather late
I rather like the randomness of this and I can't recall when I haven't had my choices in all that time. Perhaps I just don't choose the best stuff!

In the past few years, I've been scaled back or missed wines quite regularly (both Bdx and CdP). Problems seem to occur when a wine increases in popularity but the WS allocations don't grow to match. With them running behind everyone else, you don't find out until it's too late to buy elsewhere. That said it's fast becoming less of an issue for me, what with the rampant price increases for en primeur in general.

Cheib said:

A lot of the wine I buy is ready to drink in say three to five years, my view is that it's considerably cheaper to do it this way than by the bottle from a local shop if you can afford to have the money tied up. I get to enjoy wine that's considerably better than if I wondered along to my local shop for the same cost per bottle.

^^^ this is a very good point. Some of their cheaper wines represent tremendous value if you leave them in their storage for a few years. Also worthy of note is the range of own label wines some of which (at the higher "Exhibition" level) are made by some pretty serious names and often available in half bottles.

[jet_noise]

Dear LT,

LooneyTunes said:

That said it's fast becoming less of an issue for me, what with the rampant price increases for en primeur in general

I have some 2k-2k2 Forts de Latour bought en primeur which were (and still are) the most expensive wines I've bought. There's no way I can consider that vineyard's output today,

regards,
Jet

P.S. The 2000 especially is scrummy - huge, chewy and with the longest finish evah

[jontysafe]

Many thanks for all your comments.

My wife wants to get membership for my 40th next year but I'm not sure I want to wait that long, in a real quandary now. Have decided I'm definitely going to join but if I do so now I probably upset the misses!

Mmmm just read that back, I'm going to join now and be damned........

Any recommendations from members of WS on here for drinking in say a year? Red, rhone or burgundy or something more left field?

[LooneyTunes]

jet_noise said:

I have some 2k-2k2 Forts de Latour bought en primeur which were (and still are) the most expensive wines I've bought. There's no way I can consider that vineyard's output today,

Good wine Jet, and I know a few who were lucky enough to pick it (and similar) up, but crazy to think that it's now ~£100 en primeur. Real shame that prices have increased so much and so quickly (sadly the days of Classed Growth as low as £10 bottle are long gone). Good to hear that you're drinking them though and not flogging them to the Chinese to pour Coke into.

Jonty - I'd be tempted to start off by mixing a case of their own label wines. The white burgundy is usually good value and very drinkable. Similarly, their Exhibition Sauternes is certainly worth a try, even if you don't think you like that sort of thing - decent slab of Roquefort and you may well be hooked! Having just had a quick look on their website, I'm going to be ordering a few bottles of the Exhibition Châteauneuf-du-Pape soon (2007 was an excellent vintage and this looks very fairly priced).

[jet_noise]

Dear LT,

LooneyTunes said:

Good to hear that you're drinking them though and not flogging them to the Chinese to pour Coke into.

Jonty - I'd be tempted to start off by mixing a case of their own label wines. The white burgundy is usually good value and very drinkable. Similarly, their Exhibition Sauternes is certainly worth a try, even if you don't think you like that sort of thing - decent slab of Roquefort and you may well be hooked! Having just had a quick look on their website, I'm going to be ordering a few bottles of the Exhibition Châteauneuf-du-Pape soon (2007 was an excellent vintage and this looks very fairly priced).

I agree the Exhibition Wine Soc. badged are very good. The standard own label stuff is fair too. Good suggestion for a mixed case of each for a newbie to the Winesoc. There are a couple of ready mixes available, I've just checked.

Have you ever been to any of their tastings, I haven't?

regards,
Jet

[tomw2000]

jet_noise said:

I agree the Exhibition Wine Soc. badged are very good. The standard own label stuff is fair too. Good suggestion for a mixed case of each for a newbie to the Winesoc. There are a couple of ready mixes available, I've just checked.

Have you ever been to any of their tastings, I haven't?

regards,
Jet

I've been to a few of their tastings. Couple nottingham based and then at the main 'showroom' in Stevenage.

Horses for courses and you get a really interesting mix of folk -but I've always enyjoyed them.

[LooneyTunes]

jet_noise said:

Have you ever been to any of their tastings, I haven't?

Sadly not. The closest ones to me aren't close enough to easily make it back from, so tend to just crack interesting bottles with friends. Really should remedy but, if I was to devote the time out to getting to a decent tasting, I'd be more likely to get along to one of the trade tastings in London (where there's usually more opportunity to meet the wine makers).

[LooneyTunes]

Current wine list arrived today.

In the newsletter it mentions that 15th Oct --> 31st Dec new members will get £20 credited to their account, thus making the effective cost to join £20... might be of interest for anyone contemplating joining, just hang fire for a couple more weeks.