Wine Enthusiast

Pros:  cute wine-related paraphernalia you won't find elsewhere; expert advice

Cons:  shipping, and other items, are expensive

The Bottom Line:  A great place to shop for wine experts. Expensive for the average consumer.

Full review
Last spring, I went shopping online for a new wine rack. (My 12-bottle Pottery Barn rack just wasn't holding enough anymore!) I found the Wine Enthusiast Online store after checking with several other wine-related webstores.

I ended up staying at the Wine Enthusiast online store for several reasons.

Large selection of items
I was impressed by the inventory of wine-related items available. Wine Enthusiast is probably the most well known for it's sale of wine cellars, wine fridges -- basically items that allow you a means to save and preserve your bottles of wine. They have every kind of wine storage available to the shopper here, from $50 wine racks, to $5000 wine "rooms."

Their specialty is obviously specifically in wine preservation and storage. Their Wine racks & cooling page is the most extensive of all of the other items available for sale. They also advertise an 800-number for consultation on which wine cellar/packing system would be the best for you.

In other sections of the site, they also offer glassware, items for home decor, gift ideas and more. But in my opinion, a lot of these items are overpriced. (More on this later.)

The design of the site
Personally, I am impressed with the design of the site. For a site with a lot of information, I find that it is very well-organized -- not cluttered like so many other websites, and it's easy to find what you are looking for here. I think that items are divided up in a concise manner.

And navigation bars are plenty - there is the standard navigation bar on the left hand side, as well as an added, smaller bar on the top and bottom of each page. The left hand navigation bar has roll-over buttons -- nice! Oh, and if you STILL can't find what you are looking for, they have several drop-down menus staring you in the face. You really can't go wrong with their design.

Shipping
Shipping was expensive. Then again, I bought a heavy item. I think we paid around $30 to have our wine rack delivered, and it came quickly. They had estimated roughly two weeks for the wine rack to reach me, but it came in about a week.

The wine rack came in a box, in several parts! I had not realized that we would have to put it together. Directions were easy and it came together in no time at all.

Why I wouldn't re-order my wine rack from here
Two months after we bought our wine rack from Wine Enthusiast, I found almost the identical one for $30 less at Bed, Bath and Beyond. The Wine Enthusiast website is not cheap. The lesson I learned from this is that while this site is good for specific, specialized wine accessories, for the basics -- the average consumer might want to look elsewhere.

But I would definitely recommend this website for wine connoisseurs and people looking for unique wine-related art. They offer an Outlet Store section to their page which has a few items at clearance prices. I visit the site now and again to see if they have added anything I might be interested in.

The short of it is that you have to be a specific kind of person (the kind who makes a hobby out of wine) to use this website on a regular basis. The average wine drinker is not going to care about the five different types of corkscrews that the Wine Enthusiast sells. (The average wine drinker is only going to care if the bottle is open or not!)

Although, I am sure a gift can be found here now and again, for the most part, less expensive stores exist.