Wine retailing, like the rest of the retailing world, is going through a bit of a seismic shift from bricks & mortar to clicks & order, which some might characterize as more of a stampede. In the past year or so, the Aussie consumer has awakened to the benefits (mainly price but also selection) of buying online thanks in a large part to the whinging of Gerry Harvey (Harvey Norman) & his retailing mates.

The dollar size of the online retail market is not huge (currently accounting for just 4% of all retail spending), but it is the rapid, accelerated growth of online e-commerce that is attracting new players (like Cracka) or dragging old ones (like Dan Murphy’s/Woolies) to it. As with general retail, many of the wine bricks & mortar crowd are a wee bit slow on the uptake (until very recently, Dan Murphy’s web site only gave you store info — no sales), but one indication of how seriously these folks have started to take e-commerce was the recent $340 million dollar purchase of veteran online wine merchant CellarMasters by Woolies. Cha-ching!

As I have written several times before, Australia (and the world) is floating in an ocean of wine and it has to get sold somewhere, somehow if the businesses behind it are to raise much needed cash and survive. The smaller, boutique wineries have been forced to find other sales channels for their wines as many small, independent wine stores are being bought up by the Big Boys (Coles & Woolies). The big chains are also borrowing an idea from their supermarket parents and introducing their own ‘home’ branded wines to retain more of the profit margin, which translates into far less retail shelf space for independent wines.

Here are my personal opinions on the advantages & disadvantages of online wine buying…

Advantages:

Pricing — When you clear out much of the middle layer costs (physical stores & rent, staff & wages, margin markups), you can offer a wine at a very competitive price that is on par if not better than the Big Boys get with their high-volume purchasing discounts.

Selection — Selection appears to be greater as you are freed from the physical limits of a store. Some evidence of this is Dan Murphy’s claims that with its new online store that they can offer over 5,000 products versus only 2,700 in a physical store. Another bonus they claim is that they can also carry super premium items that cannot be distributed across a whole store chain due to expensive prices or limited quantities.

Ease of Buying — It could probably not be much less painful to buy your wine online — peruse, decide, click & order and wait for delivery. No crowds, no parking hassles, no venturing out into 40-degree heat or navigating through monsoon rainstorms.

Information — One of the obvious advantages of being online is the plethora of information sources to tap into for finding out about a potential wine purchase. Most sites that sell you wine tend to do a decent job of dishing out specific wine related info (ratings, tasting notes) in hopes of convincing you to do the deal.

Disadvantages:

Purchase Size — As a general rule, most online retailers require that you buy a case (12 bottles, same wine) but some will allow a 6-bottle pack and mixed cases. If you are buying a favourite vinous drop that you know & love, then it is no worries and you will reap many of the advantages listed above. But if you have not tasted the potential wine, then a case purchase is a decent commitment both monetarily and drink wise.

Shipping Costs & Delivery Times — You would think that shipping costs could wipe out the bargain price you may have achieved by buying online, but in my experience that has never been the case. What has been a tad bit irritating is the delivery delays & hiccups once it leaves the online retailer, about which they have little control or abilities to rectify the problem. If this wine order was an essential piece of a big celebration and it does not show up in time, you are buggered.

No Independent Wine Merchant for Personal Advice — Although, as I list above in ‘Advantages’, you do have a serious quantity of wine information accessible online it does not compare to the quality of personal advice you can get from patronizing a good local, independent wine merchant. Over time, they get to know what wine is generally a palate pleaser for you and they can confidently steer you to new discoveries.

There are numerous & varied online wine sites but here is a quick guide…

General Online Site Types:

Traditional Bricks & Mortar + Online Sales: These are simply bricks & mortar retailers who also offer online wine buying and often offer some type of online incentive.

Dan Murphy’s

Prince Wine Stores

CloudWine

Online Only: These guys have no physical store, just an ordering & shipping web site. One of the positive trends with these sites is that they seem to deal in mostly premium or high quality wines & leave the super discount stuff to others.

AusCellarDoor.com.au

WineBoss.com.au

Auction / Time Limited Deal Approaches: The newest kids on the block… Cracka offers premium juice via a Dutch auction arrangement — i.e., price starts @ $20 a bottle, you lodge a bid, auction commences & price drops by fixed amount @ fixed intervals & keeps dropping until your bid is hit or you jump in & buy before the wine is all gone. VinoMofo offers up a daily deal that has a expiration date.

Cracka Wines

VinoMoFo

Liquidation / Cash Converter: Grays is literally the ‘old gray lady’ as they have been around for yonks and sell or auction everything under the sun — including wine. I would not seriously imply that GetWinesDirect does off-the- back-of-truck deals but it does seem that several of their offerings come from wineries in liquidation — someone’s got to sell it…

Graysonline.com.au

GetWinesDirect.com.au

Winery Direct Sales: And last but not least, you can order directly from your fave winery & put most of the money into their pockets…

A few summer sippers….

Yalumba Y Series Vermentino 2011 $12 — $15

If you are looking for a summer standard thirst quencher, look no farther than this piece of work by Yalumba. I have said before how much I like Yalumba’s offerings as they are all solidly made wines at smart price points, especially the Y Series. Vermentino’s homeland is the Italian region of Liguria on the Mediterranean Coast where it is widely planted on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Vermentino, like many of its Mediterranean cousins such as Fiano, Arneis & Nero d’Avola, are spreading rapidly in the Australian wine world due to their exceptional ability to handle extremes of heat & drought conditions. This wine possesses some serious levels of citrus & stone fruit with a wonderful zesty zing on the palate to make the sauvignon blanc acid bath crowd happy — this is simply summer in a bottle and it is the perfect match for a seafood BBQ feast.

Avaniel Ribera del Duero 2010 $17 — $20

The Ribera del Duero is a well-known wine making region of north-central Spain with a reputation for making very long lived & big wines from the Tempranillo grape — luckily, this is not one of them. This wonderfully drinkable red is from Bodegas Monteabellón and is made from relatively young (6 to 10 years) vines & is un-oaked. So it’s a wine that is bursting with fresh, very juicy fruit & flashes of green olives & spices and attractive palatable, soft tannins that cause you no pain.

Saint-Hilaire Blanquette de Limoux Brut 2008 $14

Just in time for the silly season I was tipped off about this wee gem from a good woman wine mate of mine and I have been spreading the good word ever since. If you believe the marketing spin, Limoux, in the Languedoc region of southwest France, is the oldest (1531 to be exact) sparkling wine producing region in the world. Traditionally, three grapes varieties have been permitted — Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and, oddly, Mauzac — but AOC (Appellation d’origine contrôlée) laws now mandate a minimum of 90% Mauzac in an effort to preserve the grape and the Blanquette (white) de Limoux style. This bottle of bubbles oozes with green apples & peaches & stone fruits but retains enough acidity for a dry, crisp finish and a crowd-pleasing luscious mouth feel.

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While we’re very good at whining, we also love a good glass or seven of wine. So, for all our drinking pleasure, Duncan Wilcox has been providing the Tribune’s reviews and tasting notes since 2009.

Follow El Wino on Twitter: @The_Wino

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