Your New Favorite Wine, Delivered Straight to Your Door

I LOVE looking at wine at the store. I can seriously get lost in the rows and rows of wine bottles from all areas of the country and world. The different labels, discovering new grapes and blends, and learning about new wineries just makes me smile. What can I say? Some people like to window shop; I like to wine window shop. I don’t even care if it’s #WineWednesday. Every day is a good day to get my wine on.
That said, I’ve pretty much — ahem — exhausted the wine section at Trader Joe’s (another post on my fave finds coming up soon!) and the people at the liquor store kinda get suspicious when you’re in there for more than 10 minutes. (I don’t know how you would even shoplift a bottle of wine, but whatever. I don’t want to be that girl.)
So the whole idea of Bright Cellars really appealed to me. Each month they ship you four lesser-known wines based on your wine preferences that are determined through an online quiz (think: what type of chocolate you like, your favorite kind of tea, juice, how you best like to enjoy a glass of vino, etc.) Is there anything better than wine just appearing on your front doorstep? I think not. (It’s like the wine shop came to me!)
Bright Cellars currently delivers to 43 out of the 50 U.S. states for $60 a month — and I am happy that Missouri is one of them! Here are the four that were matched to me.

I was SO excited to try these. I popped open the Ngumu first. I had a dear friend visiting and it seemed like the perfect thing to do. Neither one of us had tried much wine from South Africa, and the cabernet sauvignon and merlot blend wasn’t exactly my favorite (a bit too sweet), but it was fun to try (it’s end had a really big punch to it which was interesting).
Next up was the Cantivida Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, which was my favorite of the four. Deep and rich, the Chilean wine had pretty much everything you want in a good cab on a cool fall evening.
A few days later, we opened the Cambridge & Sunset The Clippings white blend, which — I’ll be totally honest — we had trouble finishing. A mix of sauvignon blanc, gewurztraminer and verdelho, it was a little too sweet for me and just lacked the crispness I like in a white. (That said, I can see it making for a good white sangria base.)
The final wine we tried from the first Bright Cellars box was the Italian Arduini Montepulciano 2013. This one, to me, had notes of cherry cola and was a softer wine, for sure. I prefer a bit rounder and more complex finish, but it made for a decent table wine with dinner. It’s not the kind of red wine you slowly savor — it’s the kind that goes down easy with good conversation.
As I tasted all the wines, I would log into my Bright Cellars account and rate my matches. Then, based on that feedback, they tweaked my next monthly shipment. (There’s also a wine concierge team whom you can get recommendations from and checks in with you to see how you’re liking your wines.) And here’s what I got the next month!

Plus, another really fun set of stickers on each wrapped-up bottle. These are so clever I want to turn them into shirts.

Seeing that I wasn’t over the moon about my first four (hey, maybe I took the quiz wrong?), I was very curious to see what the next box would have in store for me. And I was pleasantly surprised that this box was EXACTLY WHAT I LOVE IN WINE.
The Collefrisio Cerasuolo Rosé 2013 wasn’t the best rosé I’ve ever had but it was really, really lovely on a warm fall day. And I thought the Laberinto Malbec 2013 was a touch too subtle for a malbec (in my opinion — I kind of like malbecs to beat me over the head with richness), but it was still quite delicious and the friends we shared it with loved it.
The Parpadeo Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 was flavorful and big and just like what you look for in a cab (especially with steak, yum). My absolute favorite though was the Tierra y Mar Syrah 2013. I would buy a case of this wine, I loved it so much. Full, round and silky, I was sad when the bottle was empty.
Overall, I really enjoyed my shipments from Bright Cellars. Even though my first box wasn’t exactly my jam, it was good to try new varieties from different parts of the world. And, I have to say, once I rated the wines from my first box, the second box they curated for me knocked it out of the park. I honestly can’t imagine how they’d top it for the next month, but I just might have to order it to find out.
Have you ever joined a wine club or bought wine online? This was my first time with a monthly wine service like Bright Cellars (you can try it yourself here!), and I’d totally do it again. As much as I do love discovering new wine in stores, it’s equally as fun to have it appear on my doorstep and it definitely pushes you to try new varieties! —Jenn