Wine Enthusiast

Full review
Wondering where you could get a $24,000 full service bar or a basic all purpose stopper for a wine bottle? Wine Enthusiast has them both and just about everything in between.

Wine Enthusiast’s website is, as they claim “the ultimate resource for everything wine.” Just about anything you could imagine that would be related to wine, you’ll find in wine enthusiast. That’s not to say it will be cheap or even inexpensive, as you are paying for one of the finer things in life.

Website Basics

Wine Enthusiast’s homepage is set up in a straightforward and clear manner. From the homepage you can search by brand, by catalog number (from their published catalog) or by keyword. A more in-depth search tool is available on a link from the homepage. Beyond the search capabilities, you can browse by category, check out featured items, and look through special deals and offers.

Products are categorized in logical ways (wine racks, corkscrews, stemware, etc) and it is generally quite easy to find something by browsing if you don’t have a brand already picked out.

When you find a product that you want to purchase, merely choose the quantity and then add it to your shopping cart. At this point, you can also add items to registry lists if you are registered for you wedding at Wine Enthusiast.

Once you have finished your shopping, you proceed through the checkout process. For first time buyers, you will have to create a user account along with a user name and password. Once you have done this once, Wine Enthusiasts saves this information (privacy information is provided) and you won’t have to do it again when you are checking out in the future. With the account creation out of the way, you review your items, choose shipping (which can be quite pricey as many of the items they sell are quite large and quite bulky), and then choose your payment type and finally process the order. Shipping is hassle free, my stopper arrived in about 5 days and return information is included with your package, should it not be what you wanted or isn’t working right.

Thoughts

I honestly haven’t done much shopping on this site – it’s just as easy for me to go to a local housewares store as it is to shop online at Wine Enthusiast. It’s not that I think the prices are outrageous (they are about what you’ll pay at any of the higher end stores), but most of my wine shopping needs are fairly simple (a stopper here and there, maybe some stemware when too much of my old stuff is broken) and this site is really for wine connoisseurs who are looking to have it all. Where else could you find professionally designed personal wine cellars? It’s all a bit much and a bit overwhelming for me, but that’s not knocking the site – as I know there is a certain clientele that is probably more than happy using it.

I will admit though that it is a convenient place to find everything wine. If I’m out shopping in the real world, I might have to stop at 2 or 3 different places to find just what I’m looking for, at Wine Enthusiast, it’s most likely all there.

So, in the end I think that Wine Enthusiast is an excellent site for those who want the finest possible for our wines. For the rest of us, it’s a handy place to find those hard-to-find items we couldn’t find elsewhere. Watch the prices, make sure you consider shipping, especially for larger items and you just might find the stemware, wine rack, or even the full service bar you had been looking for.


Other Wine, Entertaining & Dining Related Reviews
International Wine Accessories / The Wine Enthusisast Online Store / Bon Appetit Magazine / Wine Spectator Magazine / Wine Spectator Website