Tuesday, July 08

Cruel, Cruel Summer.

by Laura Duncan

Remember childhood summers? Swimming. Sunburns. Scabs. That's all over now. The bliss of lemonade and endless days has been eclipsed by blinding heat and energy bills. If you're anything like me, one of the few things you have to look forward to now is that glass of expertly-curated wine from your favorite humorous retail website. And because we personally understand the sweet sanctity of a summer sip, we know how important it is to prevent the sky's big stupid nuclear ball from destroying your wine's molecular structure.

Commence Summer Shipping!

Your options are thus:
  • $8 standard summer shipping per order: We're adding a few bucks on to the usual $5 shipping charge, and adding some time into the process. Shipping orders to most of the country in protective refrigerated trucks isn't easy or cheap, or fast for that matter, but it'll be worth it to keep your wine from turning into soup.
  • $10 "two-day" shipping per item: If your time is more valuable than your money, you can pay $10 per item for two-day shipping. By "two-day", we mean two days transit from when your order is shipped, which could generally take up to five days from when you place the order. For instance, we won't ship two-day orders on Thursdays or Fridays. Weekends sitting in a carrier warehouse is just no fun for a wine package. The gist of it is: you should get your "two-day" order within a week from when you place it.

If that section seems familiar, it's because I lifted it from the last summer shipping blog post with the updated pricing. Many of you are seasoned vino veterans and you know how all this works.

There are mundane logistical details behind the pricing. Fridges on wheels. Consolidation. Hubs. Styrofoam. It's blindingly dull, maddeningly complex, and irritatingly important.

When all's said and done, your wine will spend no more than 2 days in the FedEx ground system. The majority of its journey will take place in a temperature-controlled environment, which is certainly more than could be said of summer road trips in the family van.

So slather on some sun goo, throw on those shades, and buy without trepidation. We can't recapture the unbridled joy of your youthful summers, but we'll try to make sure your wine doesn't turn into gravy. That's how gravy is made, right?

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Friday, June 14

Shipping of the Summer Wine

by winedavid39

Summertime is a great season for everything except ice skating, building snowmen, and shipping wine. But not here at Wine.Woot. Once again, to keep your wine from boiling over on its way to you, we're implementing our tried and true summer shipping policy. UNlike in years past, we're offering a two-day shipping option for those of you who'd rather pay a little more to get your wine a little sooner. The deets:

  • $8 standard summer shipping per order: We're adding a few bucks on to the usual $5 shipping charge, and adding some time into the process. Shipping orders to most of the country in protective refrigerated trucks isn't easy or cheap, or fast for that matter, but it'll be worth it to keep your wine from turning into soup.
  • $10 "two-day" shipping per item: If your time is more valuable than your money, you can pay $10 per item for two-day shipping. By "two-day", we mean two days transit from when your order is shipped, which could generally take up to five days from when you place the order. For instance, we won't ship two-day orders on Thursdays or Fridays. Weekends sitting in a carrier warehouse is just no fun for a wine package. The gist of it is: you should get your "two-day" order within a week from when you place it.

We're confident these measures will win the battle against the forces of heat and spoilage. Order like it's October, y'all! Let us know if you have questions or comments in the forum discussion below.

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Saturday, October 01

International Saké Day: Made like a beer and sipped like a wine.

by Alison Smith


My first experience tasting saké was back in my sports marketing days. I was shown how to do a "saké bomb" while hanging out with the Oakland A's baseball team after a game one night at a home tucked in the curvy hills of the East Bay. FUNNO! Fast forward a few years and TexaCali Ali became known as the "Saké Ninja" due to representing a portfolio of family saké breweries from Japan. With some hesitation at first (due to my saké bomb morning-after experience) I fell head over heels in love with Junmai & Ginjo Saké! So to all those who are making the "bitter beer face" about right now, listen up!...

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Thursday, September 15

Everybody's Wine.Wooting For The Weekend: Introducing Weekend Wine.Woot Sales

by Jason Toon

Get ready to get down, 7-day party people! This weekend will be the first weekend of the rest of your lives as Wine.Woot adds Saturday and Sunday sales to its weekly rotation. What does this mean for you, the cut-rate wine connoisseur?

Friday deals will only be available for 24 hours. Tarry no more, Wine.Wooter! You won't have the luxury of taking your time to decide on Friday's deal anymore, because it'll be gone by midnight. Buy or get off the carafe.

Labrats could strike on any day of the week, not just Friday. It's a brave new world for our test subjects, who might be called upon to post their volunteer wine reviews on any day, at any time, in any place. (OK, not really in any place. We just needed a third thing there.)

Your life will be approximately 40% better. With 40% more Wine.Woot deals every week, the math works out.

Remember, the fun starts this very upcoming weekend at the end of this very week. We hope to see everybody at the first-ever Saturday and Sunday deals at Wine.Woot: where every weekend is a lost weekend!

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Thursday, June 02

Someday Your Ship(ment) Will Come In: Summer Shipping Season Starts Now

by Jason Toon

Building contractors and web developers alike are familiar with the Project Triangle: the principle that you can have any two of your three most desired attributes, but probably not all three. A rich, faithful, handsome husband would be terrific. A ballclub made up of experienced, talented, cheap players would come out ahead on the field and on the balance sheet. And who wouldn’t want an affordable, roomy, and fuel-efficient car? Alas, reality usually says we have to sacrifice one of those three aspects to get the other two.

So it is with wine shipping, especially during the hot summer months. It should be obvious where Wine.Woot stands. Low cost and high quality are more important to us than high speed. The way we see it, it doesn’t matter how quickly you get your wine if it’s spoiled from heat exposure by the time it gets there. And who cares about a great wine deal if you have to pay out the nose for shipping?

That’s why the summer shipping charge will be the usual (and extremely low) $7 again this year. We think the $2 bump from the standard shipping charge is a small price to pay to ensure that your producer-direct wine shipment makes it through the heat unscathed. Sure, that cost could double or triple and you’d get your wine sooner. The producer could send it via the cheapest method they could find and hope that the heat doesn’t do any damage. But we think the best combination is the one we’ve favored every summer since 2007 – cheap and good.

You can check out the logistics at that link, if you’re interested in exactly how Wine.Woot pulls off our affordable, high-quality wine shipping. But for most of you, just know that even if your wine order takes a while to arrive, that low shipping charge and careful handling will make your wine worth waiting for.

What do you think? Would you choose a different pair from the wine shipping project triangle (cheap, fast, well-protected)? Let us know in the comments below…

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Wednesday, May 27

Wine.Woot Takes Brooklyn: Official NYC Tasting Party, June 5

by Jason Toon

Some of you Wine.Wooters have been getting together for a while now on your own, to sip wine and swap notes and soak in your collective cool. Officially, we think that’s awesome. Secretly, we’re consumed by jealousy. It’s all we can think about. And cry about.

So we just had to throw our own get-together in the heart of Brooklyn wine country. You’re all invited to join us from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, June 5, at Like the Spice Gallery, 224 Roebling Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Currently showing work by artist (and Shirt.Woot fan) Reuben Negrón, Like the Spice is convenient to the L, G, and JMZ subway lines. And the Atlantic Ocean, if you’re planning to come by submarine.

Dave “Winedavid39” Studdert and a couple of the key behind-the-scenes Wine.Woot folks (the ones who get all the work done) will be there with hors d’oeuvres, music, and more than a mere sampling of the never-before-tasted Woot Cellars summer release. Before leaving, participants will be subjected to a minor surgical procedure to excise all memories of the evening, to prevent them from revealing details of the upcoming Woot Cellars wine. It’s relatively painless. Bring your health insurance card.

Then, if you’re one of those city-that-never-sleeps types, come along to the official unofficial afterparty to be named later. If you’re trying to keep up with Winedavid39, remember he’ll still be on California time, so he’ll have an unfair advantage.

All dumb jokes aside, we’re psyched about meeting you guys, and finally bringing the rogue Wine.Woot party scene into our sphere of influence. No need to RSVP, but feel free to post questions, regrets, and Transformers 2 spoilers below.

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Tuesday, December 16

Talk Titus To Me: Live Video Chat Today

by Jason Toon

Crank open your see-holes, 'cause the time draws near for the Wine.Woot video chat with Eric Titus of Titus Vineyards. He'll spend a solid hour answering all your Titus-related questions, except for those that may compromise national security. Click on the video below at 12:30 PM Central time (1:30 Eastern, 11:30 Mountain, 10:30 Pacific) to start talkin' Titus!

Free TV : Ustream

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Friday, August 29

Name That Grape: Mystery Wine Challenge Now Open For Guesses

by Jason Toon

Attention, contestants in our Wine.Woot Mystery Wine Challenge! By now, you should have received your Wellington Vineyards order, including the mystery bottle(s). It’s time to pop the cork on it, take a sip or two, and make your best guess as to what varietal you just tasted. No, “Mad Dog 20/20” is not a varietal. If you have any questions about how this works, read the original Wine Challenge announcement or post your question in the discussion forum for this blog post.

Thanks for taking part in the largest wine tasting event in the known universe. We’ll gather the entries and salute the winners in a future blog post. Isn’t that recognition much more meaningful than some vulgar prize like mere money?

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Monday, August 11

Taste The Glory: The Wine.Woot Mystery Wine Challenge

by Jason Toon

Does your palate have mad skills? Are your tastebuds like little ninjas, trained in the ancient art of tasting by flavor monks in a hidden mountain redoubt? Could you tell your Cab Franc from your Cab Sauv, even if you were at a gas station or a pig farm?

Then you may be ready for the challenge…the Wine.Woot Mystery Wine Challenge. It could be the world’s largest tasting event, as far as we know. This is your chance to shut up those know-it-alls on the message boards who think they know more about wine than you do. Here’s how to join hundreds of your fellow wooters in putting your palate to the test:

  • Buy the current winery direct deal, a Peter Wellington Three-Pack. Each order will include a 4th bottle of mystery wine from Wellington Vineyards. If you order two or three three-packs, you’ll get two or three different mystery bottles.
  • The mystery bottle will be labeled “The Duke”, because legally it has to have some kind of label on it. But this special version of "The Duke" will contain a specific mystery varietal. Which one? That's for us to know and you to find out.
  • Look for the tiny little round dot on the mystery bottle. it’ll be in the upper left-hand corner of the back label. Make a note of what color it is.
  • Open the mystery wine. Taste the mystery wine. Consult that little Robert Parker in your head. Decide what varietal of Wellington wine you just drank.
  • If it’s before August 29th, wait until August 29th before proceeding to the next step.
  • On August 29th, we’ll make the entry form for this contest available. It's a Friday, so you've got an excuse to invite your friends over for a tasting party. At that time, you’ll need to enter your Woot username, the color of the little dot on the mystery bottle, and your guess as to what varietal it is. (We’ll announce the opening of the entry form in a blog post here on Wine.Woot, so keep your eyes on the blog on the 29th.)
  • Wait for us to announce the winners.
  • If you’re one of them, collect your “prize”: well-earned prestige and respect among your fellow members of the Wine.Woot community. It’s the greatest prize of all, except for cash. And the Feds won’t let us give people cash for a drinking contest. Spoilsports.

So are you scared yet? Do you have what it takes to claim wine-tasting supremacy? Sharpen your Jedi tongue skills and place your order now. Immortality awaits you…along with some damn good wine.

Entries will be accepted beginning August 29, 2008. To submit an entry, go to the web form to be announced later and enter your Woot username, the color of the sticker on the back label of your mystery bottle, and your varietal guess into the appropriate fields. Those identifying the correct varietal will be lavishly recognized on this web site as only Wine.Woot can. Only contestants who buy the Peter Wellington Three-Pack will be eligible to be announced as winners. No prizes will be awarded.

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Friday, August 01

Celebrate Your “Woot Birthday” With A Wine.Woot Coupon Code

by Jason Toon

Everybody celebrates the day they were born, which strikes us as arbitrary. It’s not like you had a choice in the matter. Why not celebrate the day you chose to be reborn as a full-fledged wooter – your “Woot birthday”?

We’ll help. Wooters over 21 will henceforth be eligible for a coupon code worth $4.98 off shipping on your Woot winery-direct order. It can only be used once, and only during the month you originally signed up for your Woot account. Don’t know when that is? Look under your name at the left of your forum comments. See where it says “Joined”? That’s it, that date right there.

There’s a little more to say about it than we should go into here, so look for an email from us at the beginning of your Woot Birthday month (unless you’ve unchecked your newsletter notification box under the “your account” tab up there, in which case you won’t be hearing from us). All the relevant details will be there, we hope.

We know, $4.98 isn’t a whole lot. But we’ve got a lot of people to get gifts for, you know?

Coupon is available to all interested aged 21 years or older. If you have not signed up for woot.com and wish to have this coupon please email bdaycoupon@woot.com.

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