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Bright Cellars Wine Subscription Review – May 2016

Lindsey Morse
ByLindsey MorseJun 5, 2016 | 7 comments

BrightCellars-May-2016-Box

Bright Cellars
3.3 overall rating
7 Ratings | 4 Reviews

Bright Cellars is a monthly wine subscription that matches you with wines you’ll love.

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Bright Cellars was founded by two MIT grads with a passion for wine and technology, and they approach wine a little differently than most wine clubs.

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When you sign up for a membership, you take a “taste palate quiz” to determine your own unique taste profile.

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Your monthly wines are selected using a proprietary algorithm that “scores each wine by comparing 18 attributes to your preferences, matching you with your monthly experience.” You can choose the ratio of red to white you receive in each box by adjusting your preferences online.

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When it comes to selecting wines to add to their collection, Bright Cellars doesn’t turn to wine professionals or sommeliers. Instead, they crowd source their wine selection by relying on the tastes of their team. And the team is picky- only 1 in 12 wines tasted by the Bright Cellars team makes the cut!

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If you’re ever sent a bottle you don’t love, the Bright Cellars Wine Concierge will help you select a free replacement bottle that will ship with your next box.

My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

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The Subscription Box: Bright Cellars

The Cost: $60

ACTIVE DEAL: Get $50 off your first month! No coupon needed - just use this link.

The Products: 4 wines picked to match your unique taste profile.

Ships to: US states where it is legal to receive wine by mail. If you’re uncertain whether you can receive wine shipments, contact the Bright Cellars Wine Concierge at [email protected].

Check out more wine subscriptions in the Wine Subscription Box Directory and make sure to add Bright Cellars to your subscription list or wishlist!

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Each bottle in my shipment came wrapped in tissue paper.

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The tissue on each bottle was secured with a fun sticker.

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The sayings are too cute!

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This Bright Cellars shipment contained a print that depicts “The Life of a Grape.”

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Information about the individual bottles in your shipment can be accessed through the Bright Cellars website.

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Blue Towers Merlot 2015

As I mentioned above, Bright Cellars relies on your quiz answers to pick your monthly wines. They plug your answers into their algorithm, which assigns each bottle in their collection a “Bright Points Rating” that indicates how well it will suit your particular taste. This Chilean Merlot is my highest rated wine- a 94! It’s “ripe and full of dark fruit flavors like plum, blackberry and black raspberry! A touch of oak and baking spices add to the complexity.” I’m pleased to report that Bright Cellars nailed this pick! I love it.

Adrift Sauvignon Blanc 2014

Sauvignon Blanc is one of my favorite go-to wines, so this is another great pick for me. (Well done, technology!) This is a crisp and refreshing wine with flavors of lemon, apple, and pineapple. Fun fact: according to Bright Cellars, feta cheese is a great match for Sauvignon Blanc.

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Pana Verdelho 2015

This bottle of Verdelho is from South East Australia, where the grape has been used in winemaking since the 1820’s. Verdehlo is a wine I discovered fairly recently, and another one of my favorites. I find that it tends to have a nice acidity, like Sauvignon Blanc, but with a little bit more fruit. From Bright Cellars: “Pana Verdelho has hints of it all: orchard, stone, citrus and tropical fruits including pear, peach, green apple, lemon and nectarine. This wine is light, bright and pairs best with warm Summer nights.”

Murale Pinot Grigio- $15.95

Out of all the bottles I received this month, this is the only wine I could find available for sale online. Bright Cellars sources their bottles directly from vineyards and wine merchants, and I always think it’s exciting to receive bottles that aren’t widely available. Pinot Grigio isn’t one of my all-time favorite wines (I sometimes find it’s a little lacking in flavor), but I think it’s a great food wine for light dishes like salad and fish. This one is crisp with really nice mellow fruit flavors.

Verdict: I’m very impressed with this box from Bright Cellars! I think it’s so interesting that they rely on technology and the tastes of their staff to pick wine (instead of sommeliers), and I definitely think they’re on to something. All of the wines I received were great picks. (I even liked the Pinot Grigio they sent, which is a wine that sometimes falls flat for me.) I also think the $15 per bottle breakdown is fair, especially since Bright Cellars guarantees that you’ll like what you receive. I feel a lot more secure letting a wine company pick bottles for me when they stand behind their selections!

What do you think about Bright Cellars? Will you give it a try?

Starting at $80.00
Active Deal
Get $50 off your first month!
Subscribe Now

A subscription box that sends you 4 bottles of wine custom matched to your palette based upon our wine quiz. Each month, you'll get 4 bottles of wine ($20/each).

Lindsey Morse
Lindsey Morse

Lindsey is a professional baker, cold brew coffee addict, and rosé aficionado who loves writing about food and wine. When she’s not sharing her love of subscription boxes with the world, you’ll find her in the podcasting studio, perfecting her cake decorating techniques, or cursing her way through the New York Times daily crossword puzzle. 


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7 comments

Val

Brightcellars just applies their own custom labels to cheap wine, they are not sending unique brands or letting you discover wine at all. It’s made up labels on $4 bottles. If you like and appreciate wine, this really isn’t a good fit as the quality is more for people who are casual drinkers and want something mild. This is fine for many, but they outright lie about the brand and what they are truly sending you. They are sending you Sonoma 980 wines ONLY and nothing else.

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Jon

They only guarantee their wine for 30 days, and at their discretion.
Buyer Beware!

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Jason

I don’t see the difference between going to the store and buying a good French Medoc 4 x = 60$ than signing up for this and having it logically send me bottles that maybe I wouldn’t be over the same amount of time period. I prefer to go to the store. I have the choice to take my time rather than be pressured into buying things I don’t need over a specific allotted time.

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Alisha Smith

One very important thing you should do when signing up for your first month with the $30 off is go through the survey, sign up with your email and don’t purchase right then and there! Wait a few days and they will email you saying you have an extra bottle for free if you order “within 24 hours” (it’s not actually 24 hours, I was still able to get it 3 weeks later). So you actually get 5 bottles instead of 4 and still get the $30 off price!

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C.D.

This service is a huge scam! Good luck cancelling your account if you ever decide it’s not for you. I tried 3 seperate times to reach out to my “wine concierge” to stop shipments and cancel my account. Each time I received an email stating that I needed to give them feedback as to why, and they would honor my request. I kindly let them know that I no longer wanted to receive the wines. They emailed me back that they would adjust my shipments to every other month. I declined. Low and behold they continued to send shipments. I have now been charged 3 more shipments and each time, I contacted them to stop sending the wines and cancel my service. They won’t. I was just notified yesterday that I have been charged for the 4th shipment which is on its way. ONCE AGAIN, I reached out to them to unsubscribe me and cancel this shipment, refund me, and stop scamming me. I received an email from them saying that they will adjust my shipping frequency IF I give them my reasons.

Save yourself the frustrations and scam. DO NOT sign-up for this. You have been warned!!!

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Amy M

I just signed up for this, because they offered me a huge discount on the first shipment. Here’s hoping it’s good.

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Ragan

I could so not answer that chocolate question. Because “all of them” is not a choice…

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