UKC

Anyone a member and are their wines as good as they say they are for the price? What about their ethics?

In reply to aln: Tried them but missed going into wine shop. I found their stuff more variable than I got from my decent independent... some was good, some a lot less so and as common with most things, if something claims to be £12 a bottle but you get it for £8 or whatever, it invariably behaves like an £8 bottle....

So - you'll probably get some decent stuff but a few duds (which they do promise to refund although I didn't bother going that far as none was actually bad).... but what you get will be decent (or not) for the price paid. I didn't really see any great sign of lots of amazing tasting £15 bottles coming my way for a tenner, just a mixed bag of roughly what one would expect for a tenner a bottle or whatever.

The business model/supporting makers side is interesting but no idea if its as good as it sounds or significant. Again, small independents are doing a good job of supporting smaller producers as it stands I expect. My local shop regularly has the wine makers themselves in and most have only a handfull of outlets per country so teh relationship between maker and small o

In reply to aln:

Friend of mine used to get a lot of bottles from them, some of which were really excellent.

He gave up to save his liver, I believe - I got the impression you had to buy a lot to make it worthwhile.

In reply to Ferret:

Can you honestly say you can tell the difference?

In reply to aln:
we tried them once - got an introductory offer voucher in with some books from Amazon I think.

I found the marketing quite misleading (I was sceptical to start with and read it very carefully, expected to get 12 bottles and got 6). I re-read the blurb and sure enough, if you read it in a very particular and close way, it was apparent that the deal was for 6 not 12. Fair enough, my bad (perhaps).

Regarding the quality, they were average. Very strong sense that they priced high initially in order to leave room for subsequent considerable discount.

They weren't as good as Majestic in terms of range and quality at the price point we're interested in; also Majestic delivery is easily arranged to be on a day to suit (i.e. when working at home) rather than through an unhelpful courier firm. Additionally, we've got 2 good independent wine shops within 10 minutes walk which we like to support, too.

we won't use Naked again

In reply to aln: Use them but considering cancelling. Mixed bag of wines to date.

It is nice that I can order 12 and they throw in an extra bottle (occurs as we build up the account to a level that will buy a case and by then they are frothing to get us to spend that they give us offers).

It is nice you do not have to buy every month like some other clubs.

It doesn't score as well as The Wine Society http://www.thewinesociety.com for wines and to which has won many awards, does genuine discounts, and is long established.

In reply to woolsack:

Why would you not be able to taste the difference? It isn't so much the price difference that you can taste, but only if the price difference reflects the quality of the wine. I mean we found a good Bordeaux for 6.99 in Sainsburys (no deal or anything, just the straight price) and bought a case of 6 for Xmas/new year. Went back a month later to buy 12 to put down for a couple of years and the same wine / same vintage had spiked up to 10.99/bt. At the moment, there are some damn good 2009 and 2010 rhone valley wines around that cost a bit (£2-4/bt) more than the same wines have in the past, but this really does reflect the good quality they represent.

In reply to grumpybearpantsclimbinggoat:
I used to buy from Naked Wines but didtched it in favour of the Wine Society. No pressure to buy, just a very good wine list with huge variety at every price point and lots of information about wine which has certainly helped with the learning curve.

In reply to Jimbo W: I'm interested in Ferret's notion that he can taste a £4 difference

In reply to aln: Some interesting replies, thanks for that.

In reply to woolsack:

1/3 of the price, 1/2 the price if you take the tax out. I can tell the difference and I don't pretend to be any great expert. I would be much less able to tell the difference between a £20 and £25 bottle.

In reply to woolsack: bear in mind that, in both cases, something in the region of £6 is spent on bottling, labelling, transport, vat, duty, marketing, and the various negociant, importer and supermarket profit margins. So one contains about £2 of wine and the other about £6. Yes, the difference is very easy to tell - to me at least!

I suspect that there's some inverse snobbery at work here. Also, as a rule, better wine needs longer in bottle to become mature. If you buy good claret (which often has particularly long maturation times, especially in top vintages - mid-range 2000s are just about ready now) and drink it immediately you will indeed conclude it's rubbish, because it'll be over-tannic and raw. Give it a few years and it'll become lovely.

Grumpy, with respect, the point about the Wine Society is that they don't do discounts. They almost never have sales, they just sell wine to their members for what it's worth. I've disliked the odd bottle from then but never ever thought it was anything but fair value. And that's enormously reassuring.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham: oops - my mistake on the discount thing.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham: The WS does do discounts. Champagne is often priced at 6 for the price of 5. And you sometimes get case discounts although not very often.

Their after sales service is awesome though. They sent me the wrong case of 6 once, when I rang them they delivered the correct stuff a couple of days later and told me I could keep the incorrect stuff which wasn't cheap. And when I had some corked wine they refunded the price without question.

In reply to aln:

As someone who likes wine but really doesn't have the time nor inclination to do the legwork, I'm pretty happy with the selection / value we get from Naked Wines. Whether its the 'best' option I couldn't say but comparing it with supermarket offerings I don't feel like its a bad option.

In reply to Graeme Alderson: well, yes, and you also get a few pence off if you collect from Stevenage (or a few pounds if you collect from their French showroom). My point was more that they will never, ever, double the price of a bottle for three weeks then start touting it at '50% off' like the supermarkets.

Agree their customer service is superlative. Of course, that's partly because you're not a customer, but a member.

In reply to aln:

Give Laithwaites a try....i remember their mixed dozens being pretty good value.

In reply to aln:

Yes, I am a member...I quite like the randomness of it, and the off piste stuff they often come up with. Yes, I've had stuff I didn't like, but that's experimentation for you.

If you want another, probably *slightly* more mainstream and reliable supplier, who can also introduce you to some interesting stuff, I would recommend Yapp Bros. The Wine Society is very good, but is perhaps best for the mainstream where you know what you're looking for (I would buy my Bordeaux and Burgundy from them, but for some filthy Minervois then Yapp's your friend).

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:
Another +1 for The Wine Society. You pay a one-off 40 quid to join, but you'll get a voucher for 10 quid off first case or similar. Well worth it. Their own-label wines and Exhibition label wines are reliable and often suprisingly good. Get away from the supermarket mainstream!

In reply to SNC: £20 voucher at mo!!

In reply to woolsack: Not really the point I was making - I'm being sceptical that if somebody sells me something thats £12 for £8 its probably much teh same as what someone else (my good honest local wine retailer who doesn't discount except to get tail ends away) sells me for £8.... both firms try to obtain much teh same average margin per bottle but they go about it in different ways.

No way am I claiming to be a wine expert but the discounted wines from Naked rarely struck me as any better than the not discounted ones from my local at same price.

Does anybody really think a DFS sofa is actually 'worth' £1200 'after promotion' rather than the £400 they knock them out at on the other 51 weeks of the year is kind of what I was getting at......

In reply to aln:

I've used them for a while. If you join their "Angels" section the discounts are good, especially if you get an introductory voucher too (my last case of 13 only cost me £45).

The last case we received had some "dull" stuff, but generally the wines we get are very good.

It's worth touting around all of the wine societies - you usually get your first case for £45-50 and then you leave, only to join again 1 year later. This approach has worked for years for me. Naked is the only one I've stuck with much beyond the intro offer though.

In reply to aln:

Just joined as the result of being sick of supermarket wines, friend gave me an intro voucher. Got 12 bottles for 56 quid or something (that's after the £40 intro voucher) and signed up to be an 'angel' then so got another £40 voucher straight away.

+ not the supermarkets, yay.

- I am already irritated with them constantly telling me how fricking awesome I am for joining.
The discount structures do remind me of Everest double glazing which I don't like one bit, I'd much rather they just had an honest one price.

But the real crunch - I think I have drunk 3 of their bottles so far and quality for me seems to be much the same as supermarket fiver a bottle wines. This is what I was trying to get away from so will probably order another case and pick it a bit more carefully (the one I have at the moment was an off the shelf mix of reds) but if the quality does not improve I am off.

We drive past majestic quite frequently so I think we will try them if naked does get binned, nothing quite like try before you buy!

In reply to woolsack:

It's at the lower end where you should be able to tell the difference in my opinion- assuming the £8 and £12 are fairly priced.

The cost of the physical bottle, label and closure is the same for both. As is the shipping and the duty (which is £2 in itself). Net the lot back after everyone has had their slice and the vigneron may be getting £1 on the £8 bottle and £3 on the £12 bottle. The wine may not be three times 'better' (however you quantify that), but it may well be twice as good value.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:
Point taken

They also have a very good relationship with JL Chave which means that occasionally you get Chave Hermitage at a very good price. It is still rather expensive though!

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

Got a £50 voucher a few years ago. Bought 24 bottles. Nothing really grabbed me. What you save buying "direct" you lose through their more expensive price.

You'll get a better deal with a local wine shop. We use Old School Wines - who are really friendly and not pretentious. My father in law uses Tanners.

In reply to Philip: according to the BBC/watchdog/oz Clarke a £5 bottle of wine has about 20 pence worth of wine in it. A £10 bottle has about £3.50 worth of wine in it. There's the difference in quality. We are too used to wine being cheap and quality suffers. Arguably a £15 bottle is far better value than a fiver's worth.

Of late I've increasingly found myself creeping up to the £7 to £8 range and drinking a bit less. Must be getting old...

That point was made further up.

It's not that simple though. Naked Wines promotes new growers. Established companies have lower running costs, they already have equipment, they have cash rather finance to run the company. The wine I bought from Naked Wines was £15 / bottle, but with the voucher came down to about £10. There weren't any in the 24 that I would choose to replace the wines I regularly buy for £7 - 12 / bottle.

I ended up cooking with most of them, finishing off the other half of the bottle with the meal. It wasn't undrinkable, but they weren't worth the money.

As I said above, as good local wine merchant will do better than Naked Wines - and will probably still be supporting smaller growers.

In reply to aln: Gave up on their package deals - always found the wines pretty average. But there is better stuff in there if you take the time to go through the listings. That gave better results, but not failsafe and more expensive.

In reply to All: I’ve seen similar unenthusiastic reviews for NW too; so, which online sites are worth trying or does nothing beat the local wine merchants, short of heading to the nearest Chateau?

In reply to Billy the fish: The Wine Society http://www.thewinesociety.com/

In reply to Ferret:

Fair enough

In reply to aln: if anyone is interested.

Had an email from Laithwaite's.

12 of their bestselling red and white wines for £59.88 saving £40 and will deliver for free.

Use code GXN1A

Laithwaites website or on telephone 0845 194 7845

In reply to Jamie Wakeham: And as if by magic, here is an article published today about the Wine Society and discounts

http://societygrapevine.com/2013/11/the-wine-society-pricing-and-discounts/...

In reply to Graeme Alderson: Clicking on that link doesn't lead to an 'article'.

In reply to aln: no, it's a statement of position, but it's (IMO) a bloody good position to hold.

I've never felt I'd bought an awfully over-priced bottle from TWS. I've also never felt I got a bargain. Sure, I've liked some more than others, but they've always been priced, more or less, at just what they were actually worth - and with something as ephemeral and subjective as wine, that's a really useful attribute.

In reply to Philip: I made the decision a while ago to drink half as much wine at twice the price. I had far too many duff bottles in the £10-£15 bracket.

Recently discovered the delights of Amarone after being a bit fixated with Bordeaux. No expert at all, but rarely dissappointed in the £25-£40 price bracket. We don't drink a lot so happier to spend up a bit more.

In reply to All:

I have a £60 voucher code for naked wines if anyone wants it to try them out. I think the min order is 12 bottles.

Its valid for 30 day from today, just got it in the post in with some tickets. I have used these vouchers twice before (2 accounts) so cannot use this one.

Email if you want it.