Majestic Wine: a royally good experience (Majestic Wine)

Member Name: MarieHHH

Product:	Majestic Wine
Date:	21/06/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good wines at cheap prices, excellent customer service

Disadvantages: have to buy 12 bottles at a go, no very cheap wines

When my better half and I sat down to begin our wedding planning, I had lots of things I thought were important: the colour scheme, the flowers, the invitations... in fact my list was fairly endless. His on the other hand was very concise: good wine. Since we had been lucky enough to find a reception venue that allowed us to buy our own alcohol, we headed towards Majestic on the recommendation of a friend...

What is Majestic Wine?

Majestic Wine is a company that sells wine and a selection of other alcoholic beverages in bulk, both from real shops and online. This review will focus on their real stores rather than online site.


How does Majestic Wine differ from a normal wine shop?

Majestic Wine differs from a normal wine shop in that you must buy 12 bottles at least at a time. However, these can be different bottles - you don't have to buy all the same type. It also offers significant discounts on nearly all its wine if you buy two bottles rather than one. Another difference is that it's more of a warehouse than a shop - there aren't shelves, rather stacks of boxes of wine with bottles out on top.


How was my Majestic experience?

The Majestic shop had its own free car park outside (something I've since discovered is fairly standard) which was a good starting point. On entering, we wandered through the various 'aisles' between the boxes of wine which were organized by region and colour. Being fans of New Zealand wine we paused in that section and were approached by a helpful member of staff. In addition to coming across as rather knowledgeable he was also friendly and helpful - on learning we were buying for a wedding he offered to arrange a tasting for us (which we declined since I had to drive back) and then suggested that if we wanted to try a range before deciding he'd sell us one bottle of each at the 'special offer' price usually reserved for those buying 2 or more bottles of each type. He also then explained their 'use or return' policy (useful) and the option of having free glass loan (not needed, but was good to know.)

We ended up leaving with 5 types of champagne and 7 types of wine, all of which were excellent which made choosing our final selection all the more difficult!

Once we had chosen we arranged for free delivery, which arrived promptly in the time frame they promised. The wine itself did not disappoint, and many people commented on the quality of the wine during our reception... which made me feel more than a little smug given what a great deal we'd got it for!


Conclusions

Great service and excellent value, I would definitely recommend Majestic. However, they don't really do 'cheap cheap' wine, so if you're looking for things at £3 a bottle mark stick with Tesco.

Summary: Great service and excellent value. I would definitely recommend.