Nakedwines.com Review

Nakedwines.com

Wine Club Overview & Details

Wine Club Rating:

This wine club is...

Summary

Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.

What I Like

The list of things I love about Naked Wines is long, but here are some of my favorite bits: the wines we tried are generally good and priced well; the winemakers interact with customers on a regular basis; and it’s super flexible to adapt to your needs.

Improvements

I would love to see them offer a gift subscription and the ability to customize introductory cases.

Benefits

Drawbacks

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FYI: I find great wine deals so you don’t have to. To keep me on the hunt, I earn a commission when you buy wine based on my recommendations.

Coupons & Promo Codes

Deal Save $100 on 6 bottles + $20
Save $100 on your first 6-bottle case, just $49.99. Shipping included. Then save another $20 on your second order. Click for this deal

Deal Save $100 on 12 bottles + $20
Save $100 on your first 12-bottle case, just $79.99 — shipping included. Then save another $20 on your second order. Click for this deal

Nakedwines.com Review

Nakedwines.com Review

How does Nakedwines.com work?

Nakedwines.com memberships begin with an introductory case of wine, sold to you at a substantial discount (more on this later). Once you’re a member (they call them Angels) you can buy wine at any time and take advantage of their members-only pricing. You’ll deposit $40 into your Angel account every month, and then choose which wines you want when you’re ready to order wine.

There’s a minimum order of six bottles. If you want to order more wine than you have funds in your account, you can apply the extra to your credit card at checkout. The wines can be shipped to your home, office, or one of 1000s of local-pickup locations (via FedEx and UPS).

How Nakedwines.com works financially

Nakedwines.com has a Satisfaction Guarantee — if you order a wine you don’t like, let them know and they’ll credit your account. Even better, their guarantee essentially covers their whole service. If you decide to give up your Angel wings, any unspent funds will be refunded back to your credit card. They are the only service I know of that takes deposits/subscription payments and refunds all unspent money.

At Nakedwines.com you can rate your wines — for your benefit and as part of the community of other Angels. These ratings help Nakedwines.com steer you in the direction of wines you’ll like, and you can use other tools to pick your wines like flavor profiles: Fruity Reds, Crisp Whites, and Rosé. Learn more about the wines at Nakedwines.com.

Quick note: throughout this review I’ll refer to Naked Wines in two ways. When I talk about the company or their actual wines, I say “Naked Wines” and when I talk about the website you buy from and the subscription service, I say “Nakedwines.com.

How much does Nakedwines.com cost?

Your monthly deposit is $40. Shipping is always free. The wine prices at Nakedwines.com are variable. Angel prices range from $12.99 (for a California Chardonnay or a Côtes du Rhône) to $69.99 (for an Oakville Napa Cabernet Sauvignon). Enjoy a big discount on your introductory offer case and a bonus discount on the first box you order after that.

Introductory offers (also known as vouchers)

To get you to try their wines, Naked Wines offers a $100 discount (which they call a voucher) on your first shipment of wines. Important: you’re enrolling in an ongoing membership when you purchase the trial pack.

This is their standard offer (keep reading for a better one):

Nakedwines.com introductory offer

But when you buy through my links you get an even bigger discount:

After this trial pack, you can pick the wines you get in future shipments.

As of March 13, 2023, you will also get a $20 credit toward your first regular-priced order. I believe this will be temporary, so take advantage of it while you can.

As you might imagine, these introductory offers cost Naked Wines a lot more than what they’re charging you. They pick wines for these offers they believe will make the most customers come back for more. You probably will not like all of the wines you try in these introductory offers, but try to keep an open mind about that Chardonnay or that Merlot. 😆

Cutting out the middlemen

Naked Wines is essentially a winery who sells directly to consumers (DTC) at Nakedwines.com. They have cut out the middlemen (the distributors) who normally take a big share of the total price you pay for a bottle of wine at a store.

How Nakedwines.com works

In this way they are similar to other large membership sites like Firstleaf, Winc, and Bright Cellars (each of whom had the same goal of increasing customer value by selling DTC). In this way they are dissimilar to WSJwine and Picked by Wine.com who act as retailers and work with distributors.

Market Price vs Angel Price

For each wine Naked Wines sells, they set what they believe would be the retail price at a store if it had been produced by a regular winery and gone through all of the normal channels to reach the wine drinker. To be clear, Angels never pay this price and you can’t buy wine from Nakedwines.com without being an Angel so… it’s sort of a meaningless piece of information.

If a wine’s price were more objective, it could be a useful metric to understand the relative value of what you’re paying vs what the wine is worth, but based on my experience with Naked Wines, I don’t think they always get this number right. The more relevant detail is whether I feel the price I paid for a wine is a good value.

Naked Wines sets Angel prices according to what they think is an appropriate markup, after they’ve paid the cost to produce the wine and what they committed to the winemaker.

Angel Price redux

That’s my way of describing this feature of their service, not theirs. Sometimes after Naked Wines releases a wine they get negative feedback from their members. For them, this means the price they selected for a wine was incorrect and they lower the price of that wine.

Here’s how it works: if an unacceptable percentage of customers don’t say they “would buy it again,” Naked Wines evaluates whether they are charging the right price. If they decide to lower the price, they also refund the difference as a credit to any Angel who had purchased that wine in the last 12 months — that’s amazing!

100% money back guarantee

Nakedwines.com has a Satisfaction Guarantee — if you order a wine you don’t like, let them know and they’ll credit your account the full amount of what you spent.

This is, by far, my top reason to buy wine from wine clubs. If you don’t like a wine you bought at a regular store, you can’t return it. Most wineries and fine wine stores will replace “bad bottles” (damaged or corked), but none of them will give you a store credit because you didn’t like the wine.

Even better, they extend their guarantee to cover their whole service. If you decide to give up your Angel wings, any unspent funds will be refunded back to your credit card.

They are the only service I know of that takes deposits or subscription payments and refunds all unspent money.

The Wines from Naked Wines

Naked Wines shipment of wine in the box

What kinds of wine does Nakedwines.com offer?

At the time of this review, there were 576 wines available for sale. 335 were American wines and the others were sourced from around the world. This is almost twice as many wines as were available last time I wrote this review. Unlike some of the other wine clubs in the direct to consumer subscription business, this company is growing and they keep adding more options to their “menu.”

Something that has really changed since my last review is the diversity of wines on the higher-end of the price spectrum. There are dozens of wines over $35, many from specific Napa Valley AVAs like Oakville and Diamond Mountain, multiple Champagnes, Pinot Noirs from Russian River Valley and Yamhill-Carlton (Oregon), Premier Cru Chablis, and Châteuneuf-du-Papes.

Here’s a breakdown of their wine selection on March 17, 2023:

Pie Chart depicting the percentage of each wine color at Nakedwines.com A breakdown of the different wines they make by color. Pie Chart depicting the percentage of each wine style at Nakedwines.com A breakdown of the different styles of wine they make. Chart depicting the percentage of Nakedwines.com wines Angels would buy again A breakdown of how many wines were favored by their Angels. Chart depicting the count of wines at Nakedwines.com by price range How many wines they had inventory in each price range. I’d like to see a $25-30 bucket, or even $25-40, too.

Reminder: wine taste is subjective. For any given wine on a site that crowd-sources reviews (like Nakedwines.com or Vivino) you’ll find some people thought a wine was disgusting swill to be dumped down the drain and other people will think it was the best wine they ever tried. As such, crowd-sourced ratings like “4.2 stars” or “90% would buy again” have little bearing on what you’ll personally like.

My experiences with Nakedwines.com

My Nakedwines.com Wine Ratings

Quality of Wine
Price of Wine
Wine Curation

Across all of the shipments I’ve received, I’ve been impressed with the price and quality of about 75% of the wines. In most cases I did not pick the wines I received, instead I received a seasonal selection of customer favorites. These are the five boxes of wine I've received and tasted, photographed in my personal wine cellar.

My updated wine ratings reflect an average of what is available. Some wines are of better quality than others (some are exceptional, some are pretty bad), some wines are priced exceptionally and some are really average. I think they do an excellent job with wine curation, offering a huge variety of grapes, styles, and wine regions.

My Nakedwines.com shipment from August 2014 My Nakedwines.com shipment from August 2014 My Nakedwines.com shipment from December 2018 My Nakedwines.com shipment from December 2018 My Nakedwines.com shipment from November 2019 My Nakedwines.com shipment from November 2019 My Nakedwines.com shipment from July 2020 My Nakedwines.com shipment from July 2020 My Nakedwines.com shipment from February 2023 I drank these wines in February 2023

Wines I recently received from Nakedwines.com

In my most recent shipment I chose six of the wines I received and they chose six for me. These four were my favorite. I go into detail about more the Naked Wines I received in my full wine review.

Rick Boyer Unoaked ChardonnayWine: 2021 Rick Boyer Unoaked Chardonnay
Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Region: Edna Valley, Central Coast, California
Retail price: $18.99
Angel price: $15.99
Angels who would buy again: 92% of 100

A beautiful expression of Central Coast Chardonnay which went easy on the winemaking to let the Chardonnay’s bright fruitiness shine on its own.

Rick Boyer is a veteran winemaker who gave up on winemaking because the business is hard on small wineries. Naked Wines brought him out of “retirement” and now he’s focused on making delicate, layered wines from the Central Coast. This is one of my favorite wines and an incredible value.

My full review of: Rick Boyer Unoaked Chardonnay

F. Stephen Millier Legend Series Santa Barbara Pinot NoirWine: 2021 F. Stephen Millier Legend Series Santa Barbara Pinot Noir
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Region: Santa Maria Valley, Central Coast, California
Retail price: $26.99
Angel price: $15.99
Angels who would buy again: 93% of 908 would buy again (and sold out)

For $15.99 this Pinot Noir was an impressive doppelganger for Santa Barbara’s more premium product, but the complexity and depth was missing.

A true Naked wines winemaking collaboration between fan-favorite Stephen Millier and long-time growers the Brothers Miller. Millier cut his teeth at Pinot mainstay David Bruce Winery before moving on to build his wine empire. The Brothers Miller are part of the family who owns and manages the acclaimed Bien Nacido vineyard in Santa Maria.

My full review of: F. Stephen Millier Legend Series Santa Barbara Pinot Noir

Patrice Grasset Chenin BlancWine: 2021 Patrice Grasset Chenin Blanc
Blend: 100% Chenin Blanc
Region: Loire Valley, France
Retail price: $30.99
Angel price: $15.99
Angels who would buy again: 91% of 235 would buy again

A more subtle Chenin Blanc than I’m used to, but it was balanced and food-friendly, and I’d drink it again.

Patrice Merceron is a third-generation French winemaker at J. de Villebois and joined Naked Wines and produces wine under the brand Patrice Grasset a few years ago. He mainly produces very popular white wines from Loire Valley for Naked Wines.

My full review of: Patrice Grasset Chenin Blanc

Camille Benitah VoluteWine: 2020 Camille Benitah Volute
Blend: Cabernet Sauvignon (dominant), Merlot (percentages not disclosed)
Region: Napa Valley, California
Retail price: $58.99
Angel price: $24.99
Angels who would buy again: 90% of 109 would buy again

When I taste wines like this one, I’m reminded that Napa Valley wines are mostly overpriced and overhyped. It showcases Napa’s red wine grapes and terroir without breaking the bank.

Previously a maker of cult wines herself, Camille Benitah was responsible for Merus ($150 back in 2008) and has worked with Paul Hobbs, too. She’s got serious chops and she works with Naked Wines because they allow her to focus on the creative side and they take care of the rest of the details.

My full review of: Camille Benitah Volute

Who should join Nakedwines.com?

Nakedwines.com may be the only wine subscription I think is appropriate for almost everyone. I strongly believe that you get great value to find new wine styles and regions you’ll enjoy.

I also believe strongly that Nakedwines.com is a better way to buy wine than how you’re doing it now. This service is a great way to get from not thinking too much about the wine you buy to becoming a serious wine enthusiast.

Reasons to join Nakedwines.com

My Nakedwines.com Benefits Ratings

Satisfaction Guarantee
Customer Service
Wine Education
Convenience

Who shouldn’t join Nakedwines.com

Unless you identify with the wine drinkers listed below — who aren’t a good match for this subscription — I think you should at least try them out (that intro offer is a great deal).

Sweet wine drinkers. If you exclusively drink wines on the sweeter side, Nakedwines.com won’t have enough of a selection to keep you interested.

Organic, natural, sustainable wine drinkers. At this time Nakedwines.com has an almost non-existent selection of organic wine, and no wine that the natural wine community would endorse. Even though I can be fairly certain there are plenty of organic and sustainable vineyards producing fruit that goes into these wines, they don’t tell you which ones, so shopping here is difficult if sustainability is important to you.

Wine drinkers on a very tight budget. While Nakedwines.com does offer a selection of wines under $15, roughly 50% of them are between $15-25 and roughly 40% are over $25.

How does Nakedwines.com compare with other wine clubs?

I go to great lengths to enumerate how Naked Wines is unique on my company overview page, so comparing it to other wine clubs feels a little wrong.

On the other hand, you have a choice about where you buy wine and Nakedwines.com isn’t the only place to do so. I’m going to compare it to two other sites — both are personalized wine clubs.

To summarize, Nakedwines.com is a personalized wine club where you pick every wine you receive, the wines cost $12.99-69.99, and shipping is free. By comparison:

Wine.com Logo Picked by Wine.com

Picked by Wine.com is a personalized wine club where you get started with a detailed quiz about your wine preferences. A human being (not an algorithm, but an actual sommelier) picks wine for you based on what you like and don’t. They choose wines based on the selection at Wine.com which are available for shipping to your state.

The wines sold at Wine.com are produced by wineries around the world. You set your average price per bottle (per shipment) and they stick to your budget — you can choose anywhere from $20-40 per bottle in $5 increments, and you can set separate values for red and white wines.

Shipping is free for regular club shipments. Picked offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Firstleaf Logo Firstleaf Wine

Firstleaf is a personalized wine club where you answer a detailed online quiz about your wine preferences and an algorithm picks wine for you based on its understanding of what you like and what don’t.

Firstleaf wines are produced by and for Firstleaf (like Naked Wines) but they don’t use the “independent winemaker” model. You can choose to receive all $15 wines or you can upgrade your shipment to include some premium wines.

Shipping is free for regular club shipments. Firstleaf offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Is Nakedwines.com a good gift?

No. They do not currently offer a gift subscription.

Nakedwines.com Wine Subscription