A Bakers Dozen bottles of wine (virginwines.com)

Member Name: jo@145

Product:	virginwines.com
Date:	28/06/05 (210 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Don't like? then don't pay!, Mix case as you want, delivered to the door

Disadvantages: need to buy a case, May be cheaper locally

Lastminute.com treated us to £20 off a case of wine from Virginwine.com, when we booked a holiday. We couldn't refuse the tempting offer, saves having to pack wine in our case when returning from holiday!
I later discovered you don't need to book with lastminute.com to get the offer, if you log on to the site there is a password for £20 off your first order, but that's life isn't it!

Logging onto Virginwines.com a bright home page greets you in purple and red colours mostly. You are asked to log in if you haven’t done so before, a very easy process – my husband even did it! Then each time you log on, it welcomes you back by name! The main part of the homepage is divided into 3 boxes, “Rate your Wine”, “Browse” and “Mixed Cases”. There is a line to click on for “Mix yourself a case of wine” and down the right side of the page other topics which I will discuss later. On the right of the page there is a box for special deals, Personal recommendations and other information.
At the bottom of the page is “Our customer promise”. This is amazing in my mind, they state if you don’t like the wine you don’t pay! Now how many times have you heard that before? I can’t help but wonder if it is abused, but the promise is there. So far we have liked the wine, and would buy again so have not needed to try this out. They then answer questions, which I quote.

And what if…

* You are out during the day?

We promise - Our drivers will find a safe place to leave your wine; but if it does get stole we will replace it.

*You find it cheaper elsewhere?

We will refund the difference.

*You live somewhere obscure?

We deliver anywhere in the UK including NI, Highlands and Islands for the charge of £4.99.

*You are in a hurry?

We deliver within 7 days, or the delivery is free.
BROWSE

On the how to browse page, you are told that it is grouped in taste styles, rather than grape, vintage or region but if you prefer to use search you can find wines this way. There is a “Wine Wizard”, by completing two steps it will tell you which style of wine you are likely to enjoy. The questions are simple and you rate from 5 star fantastic to 1 star awful or can put in not tasted yet, whether or not you like, love or don’t like a type of wine. Click on update ratings and then show me the wines and you are given a list you should like. If you don’t want to do this, then just browse each section. I tended to jump through the sections but will try to give you the relevant details.

SHOW ME THE WINES

If you are in a hurry you can click on Mixed cases. Introductory vouchers cannot be used on these offers. The Mixed starter Red has been reduced at present from £77.87 to £64.99, the White case is also the same price. The Premium Medal winner’s case is £93 and there are others to choose from.

STYLES OF WINE

Firstly we’ll look at the whites. I really do prefer whites to reds, but having said that I do partake of the odd glass of red! I’m sure that comes as no surprise, as we all will have heard of the benefits of drinking red wine! I have checked out the web site today for numbers in each section, but I’m sure this will vary with availability.
Oaky Aussie Chardonnay – there are 28 different bottles in this section but only 3 in the Classic Chardonnay. The clean crisp whites have 18 bottles ranging from £4.99 to £23.99. Fragrant but dry white has the largest selection of wine with 37 bottles ranging from £5.49 to £14.99. The next type is Kiwi Sauvignon with only 8 bottles from £5.99 to £9.99. There were none in the Classic Sauvignon range today! And one in the Sweet German style at £6.99. I think that tells us something!

Now to the Reds, a really large selection of Classic reds 46 bottles from £6.99 to £27.99 and 30 Full and Fruity Reds ranging from £5.49 to £7.99. There were 50 huge Reds the most expensive being £49.99. There are always short descriptions of each of the wines and this one said a HUGE wine, bigger than Ayers Rock, a monster red, called E & E Black Pepper Shiraz 1999, to be reserved for your best sirloin steak and for very privileged drinking companions. I can’t imagine drinking a glass of wine costing over £8 per glass! Call me mean but I must remember if I don’t like it Virgin will refund my money…..so may be I will try a bottle for my next BIG MONSTER birthday! Back to the list of styles, we have Lunchtime Reds coming in with 16 bottles ranging from £5.99 to £25.99 and 12 Rioja style at £5.39 to £31.99.Lastly in the reds soft and juicy reds 25 bottles at £4.99 to £22.99.

There is also a section of Champagne, and this was the first time I actually recognised a brand name! 13 bottles varying from £13.99 to £39.99. There were 5 Sparkling wines, 6 Dessert wines and 4 Rose. The last type is Fortified wine and again I recognised good names here, with Sherry, Port and Madeira from only £4.99 to £31.99 for a bottle of Croft Vintage port.

I haven’t checked the named branded against prices in shops or online so can’t say if they are good or not, but again the promise is find it cheaper and we will refund the difference, so you can’t lose.

Once you have selected which type of wine you want, you can choose all prices or under a certain figure and the list will appear. You can click for more details, and discover the grape, country, region, vintage etc. Also other customer’s comments are listed.

By each of the types are little boxes with icons to depict whether its a Dry wine, Elegant, No oak, Pricey, Fruity, Huge, Bubbly etc. which gives you a clue before choosing that type.

There are helpful and often amusing comments about each bottle. For example on a bottle costing £23.99 – “More the mutt’s nuts than the dog’s teeth, make no bones about it this is a scorcher, it’s nigh on perfect!”

BUYING

You can choose the number of bottles to add to your basket or ask them to mix you a case. Unusually they can pack 13 bottles in your case. Actually it is simple! Buy a case and you’ll discover how they do it.
Once you are ready you follow the easy steps which you are taken through to complete the sale, remembering if you have a voucher to redeem it! It remembers your details for Credit card and address etc so need to fill this in the next time you buy from them. They confirm your order quickly and you can check out the Order Tracker to see when it has left the warehouse, and a copy of your exact order.

DELIVERY INFORMATION

Standard delivery is £4.99 and is normally within 2 working days. If you live in London, certain postcodes can select within a time band for delivery. Also for a charge of £6.99 if you live within the M25 area you can have a Saturday morning delivery.

We ordered the wine on the Sunday night and it left the warehouse on Monday and was delivered in Scotland on Tuesday morning. I call that excellent service. Included in the case was a book about wine.

YOUR FAVOURITES

This section shows a list of the wines you have bought and allows you add a comment, so you can remember what it was like and if you want to order it again. If you want to try something similar there is a button to click on for other suggestions. You can use this list to buy more wine as well.

JOBS AT VIRGIN

There were two jobs available today! One was for a personal wine advisor based at Norwich and guess what you don’t need wine experience! They’ll train you and pay you a salary of £20K. The second was for an Art worker - no salary stated!


PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

This is a free service. A wine advisor will call you at home either day or evening and advise you on your choice of wine, saving you the need to hunt for what you like. I thought this was excellent until I read the job section and discovered they needed no training! But again remembering the no quibble guarantee, if you don’t like it, you don’t pay!


ABOUT US

This section has the details about Virgin wines and the address.

GIFTS

Spoil someone rotten, their words not mine! They will include a personal message and pack it in a special box and the customer promise still applies. Christmas presents easily solved if you want to spend that much! There is also a special box of 3 bottles called a Top drawer Trio costing £29.95.

WINE PLANS

If you enjoy trying new wines risk free, then there are several wine plans to choose from. If you sign up for this you get four selections a year. The most expensive plan is Globetrotters First Class reduced from £100 to £79.99, each case or if you prefer for a reduced price of £59.99 the Economy Plan or saving 20% there is the Value plan with easy drinking mellow and refreshing wines at only £49.99.

FLYING CLUB

If you are a member of the flying club you will earn extra miles from wine purchases.

We have used other wine suppliers before, the only thing I was worried about with Virgin was I didn't know the names of the wines, as we tend to buy well known products, but if you don't like it you don't pay. So no problem.

Some may argue you can buy cheaper at Tesco or Asda, but some of these wines are excellent value and a lot are award winning too. We pay £15 or £20 for a bottle of wine in a restaurant probably only costing £5 or £8 in a shop, so why not treat yourself occasionally!

MAJOR PROBLEM

As we have already bought two cases using our vouchers, I’m not sure where we can store all this wine! And I really fancy another case with the free delivery at the moment.

SOLUTION

I’ve just thought of the answer – I’ll need to drink more and have a few parties! Just drop in there’ll always be a few bottles in the fridge, in the airing cupboard, under the settee, we could play hunt the wine!

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