There was once a time where good wine could only be sold in stuffy bottle shops or at overpriced restaurants. Luckily, a new breed of startups is tackling a problem we didn’t know we had until now: wine delivered straight to your doorstep.
From natural wines to orange bottles, and quirky varietals to tried-and-true classics, you can travel the world via your glass with a delivery from one of these six online purveyors. Spice up your next virtual happy hour over a flute of bubbly or a big red.
Winc
Marketed for “the next generation of wine drinkers,” Winc is a direct-to-consumer site with a portfolio that includes vegan, organic, and biodynamic bottles. Completing a quiz—which covers your coffee preferences as well as your affinity for citrus, salt, and earthy flavors—renders suggestions that better fit your palate. Furthermore, over time, recommendations are additionally tweaked based on your reviews.
The monthly subscription costs $60 for 4 bottles; you may skip a charge any month and roll over unused credits. Select the curated bottles or create your own themed box of wines from California, France, Italy, Argentina, Spain, and Portugal.
Orange Glou
Orange wine is made by allowing the juice from white grapes to come in contact with the skins for hours or even weeks after pressing. Consequently, the resulting wines have a color that ranges from golden to dark orange, with a hard-to-describe funkiness akin to a sour beer that appeals to wine fans craving something different.
Orange Glou is the first and only wine subscription just for skin-contact wines, hand-selected in Slovakia, Italy, France, and other regions by natural wine sommelier and consultant Doreen Winkler. You can choose a three-bottle or six-bottle monthly subscription or a surprise box priced at $105 and $195 per shipment, respectively; included wines are always a surprise and never boring.
MYSA Natural Wine
Co-founders Holly Berrigan and Niclas Jansson personally source many of the wines for the natural wine marketplace MYSA, seeking out small producers who practice sustainable farming and minimal intervention in the cellar. Wine subscriptions come at three-, six-, and 12-bottle levels, with each bottle arriving with information on how it was made, tasting notes, serving temperature, and pairing ideas. Subscriptions start at $80 for 3 bottles, while individual bottles retail between $17 to $65. Blog posts, podcasts, videos, and reading recommendations on the site help you learn more about natural wines, and MYSA donates 1% of sales towards environmental initiatives.
Vivino
The world’s largest online wine marketplace and the most downloaded wine app, Vivino boasts a vibrant online community of millions who share ratings and follow others’ reviews. Wines are organized by region, variety, price, and even suggested food pairings. Moreover, the staff compiles weekly-updated lists of bestsellers in your state, covering categories like “smashing Italian whites.” Ratings include insider intel about how a certain year compares to other vintages and highlight bottles that offer great value.
Vinebox
A perfect option for a wine tasting group, Vinebox offers shipments of 9 different wines, each one packaged in a vial holding one glass. Vinebox’s sommeliers and experts collect the best wines of the moment, showcasing both just-bottled vintages and those that have been cellaring for years. You can sign up for the Quarterly Wine Club for $79 every 3 months, or order a one-off box starting at the same price; either way, you’re sure to find favorites like classic Bordeaux and unexpected finds like fruity reds fermented via the process of carbonic maceration.
Drizly
This popular site for wine, beer, spirits, and more partners with local retailers to bring their inventories online. Its availability across any North American market that legally allows alcohol delivery (currently 180) means some users can bypass the pesky restrictions they usually encounter when ordering wine online. Entering a delivery address will populate the site with products available in the area, and orders typically arrive within an hour. You can search wines by varietal and region, and trends are tracked by criteria, including wallet-friendly offerings under $10. Staff members list their favorites, and bottles are rated by other Drizly users on a five-point scale with optional reviews.
