That Time I Tried Bright Cellars...

I did it again. I fell for a box subscription promo.

This time it was Bright Cellars which is a wine subscription and I fell for it because of a YouTuber's promo code for $50 off. (Good news: because I became a customer, I now have a code I can share with YOU too!)...

But here's the thing, though. At $20 per bottle, minus $50, plus shipping, tax, and fees and it was $42.

That's just a little more than I wanted to spend on 4 bottles of wine (I know it's a good price for good wine, but that's just how I am).

But after not pulling the trigger two reminder emails from Bright Cellars later, they sent me a third email this time giving me a 5th bottle free!*

I went back to their website and to check out and it was legit. 5 bottles for $42.

I gave them my money and 100% planned on canceling the subscription, but here's what it's like:
(Oh and in case you missed it above, here's the link again to get $50 off your box, and don't forget to wait until they bribe you with the free bottle before making your purchase!)

The quiz has you pick what kind of flavors you like and your preferences for wine consumption and then they give you your 4 matches. 

If there are any you really don't want, you can request a swap before ordering. I did this for one bottle and it was easy.

The one thing I didn't notice/expect/think about was that someone 21+ has to sign for the box. This became an issue for me, and long-story-short, I recommend not ordering your wine right before going out of town. 

And order on a Monday so that you're not potentially waiting until 9pm on a weekend night for it to arrive.

But I got my box and we can finally look inside!

I actually also had my box held at the Fed-Ex store in town, which I suggest doing, but is complicated enough that I'm not going to try to explain exactly how to do that. 

But they'll only hold it there for 5 days, so plan accordingly.

And ta-da!

Right inside the box is an insert that holds a "wine wisdom" card and the wine trading cards for each wine in the box.

They're not really trading cards... but that's effectively what they are.

The wine wisdom card will teach you about wine over a series of 4 wine wisdom cards. 

Unsure if I'll ever get any more (have to get to the 4th box for the second card, 7th for the third card, and 10 for the last card). 

I just can't see myself spending $80 on 4 bottles of wine, so it kind of depends on how good the rewards program is.

Under the insert is the wine!  

I got suckered tricked into adding a wine opener at check-out, and tbh, it's decent for $8. 

My other three bottles were of course layered under the first two. 

The trading cards have the label on one side and info about the wine on the other.

There are food pairing suggestions, characteristics, and a section for rating the wine for future reference.

Husband picked the Meet Cute Zinfandel to go with cheeseburgers (with aged cheddar per the pairing suggestion).  

I poured us each a glass and was excited to try it.

We didn't end up liking it all that much (hence the already shown 3-star rating). 

It got better after letting it breath a lot (the first glasses did, but not as much as the rest of the bottle).

So, what did I think overall?

We'll first of all, if you wait even longer before your first box, you'll get another email giving you not only an extra bottle, but also a FREE bottle opener (Husband wanted to get a box with his matches, but we were more patient on this one). 

The free opener offer actually does seem to expire, so don't wait on ordering after getting that email. 

For science, I did another quiz (from a different browser, with a different email address) to see how much free stuff I could get. The wine opener was the best offer and I only got that offer once. The free bottle offer never stopped. I should unsubscribe, 

Another recommendation is that you should log in and randomly pick ratings right away, and delay you next shipment (if you want to) right away. You get more reward points for rating yoru wines in the first 7 days. That's a lot of wine, even if it was only 4 bottles. And you can go back and change your ratings. 

I missed the 7-day window, so I didn't rate mine yet.

You can then order more of the wines you like. But you have to buy either 4, 6, or 12 at a time. You can't mix-and-match. 

And there's no discount for buying larger quantities. 

Buy you do get reward points for every wine you re-order (per-order, not per-bottle). 

As of this post, there are just two rewards. There's no indication that more rewards will be added, but I don't know that there won't be more. 

For both rewards, you would receive them with your next shipment of wine. You can't just get one or the other as a standalone item. 

I haven't decided if I officially want to cancel my subscription completely yet, so I don't know how difficult that process is.  Supposedly, you can just use their Contact form, but we'll see. 

So that's Bright Cellars! If you're going to try it, make sure to use this link to get $50 off your box! (or 40%, 50%, or 60%... it keeps changing and I can't keep updating what it says.)

Check back or subscribe to find out how I like the rest of my matches!