Overview
Winedirect.com.au is a South Australian, family-owned business that lives and breathes wine. Their team works relentlessly to find the best wine deals currently on the market before boxing them up and shipping them off to customers.
RELATED: Best Australian Wine Clubs
Subscription Club Details
There are more than 50 different wine packs to choose from at winedirect.com.au ranging from “Posh Party Mix” to “The NO Sauv Blanc Pack” to “Vegan Friendly Vino”.
However, not all of these packs are available for repeat orders. Look for the “You can have a pack like this delivered regularly” on the wine pack page.
There’s no lock-in contract, no membership fee, and you can pause or skip deliveries as you please. Delivery is free on orders of 12+ bottles.
The delivery schedule is completely flexible, and you can also choose if you want the subscription to end after a certain number of deliveries.
Unfortunately, you can’t request changes to any case before delivery.
| Wine Club | Wine Direct |
| Type of Wine | Mixed |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Price (per box of 12) | $99 – $195 |
| Value for Money (our score) | |
| User reviews | n/a |
| Satisfaction guarantee | Yes |
| No repeats | No |
| Request wine changes | No |
| Delivery frequency | Completely flexible |
| Lock-in contract? | No |
| Membership Fee | No |
| Cancellation Fee | No |
| Shipping Fee | None |
| Ability to pause/skip | Yes |
| Customer support | Email, phone |
| Tasting notes included? | No |
| Organic options? | No |
| Low/no alcohol options? | No |
What We Like
Value for money
According to Wine Direst, by ordering one of their wine packs, you will enjoy savings ranging from 33% to 68% off RRP. Note that this is at the time of writing and will likely change month by month.
From our analysis, the Wine Direct packs do appear to offer a material discount versus what you would pay in-store.
And this is before factoring in the free delivery, convenience factor, and the fact that each pack is curated by a team of wine experts.
But, it’s important to note a couple of points regarding the stated savings:
- Many of the wines are not for sale anywhere else, so it’s impossible to determine savings.
- The bottles we could find for sale elsewhere were almost always available for less than the stated RRP (from which the stated savings are calculated). So the listed savings % is almost certainly overstated if you are comparing it to what you’d pay in store.
Delivery flexibility
In terms of frequency of delivery, Wine Direct is the most flexible option we have seen to date.
Not only can you choose how many packs you want to receive with a completely flexible delivery schedule (every day up to once per year and anything in between) but you can also specify a set number of deliveries before your orders stop.
If you’ve spent any time reading reviews of wine clubs you will have come across disgruntled customers who thought they had cancelled when they hadn’t and continued receiving deliveries. With this option, if you only want one or two deliveries you can specify this from the outset.
Happiness guarantee
It’s a feature of every wine club we have reviewed so far, but it still great to see. The Wine Direct “Wine Goodness Guarantee” means they will replace the product or refund your money, if there’s any wine you’re not satisfied with.
What We Don’t Like
Cannot change wines in the dozen
The wines included in each pack are non-negotiable.
If you’re not a fan of a particular variety in your case, or you’ve had the wine before and weren’t a huge fan, then tough luck.
Variety
Each case from Wine Direct comes with 3 x 4 different bottles.
We appreciate that by working with wineries and sourcing in bulk they are able to deliver excellent value, however, it’s worth pointing out that with many wine clubs you will get more variety than this.
If your intention in joining a wine club is to receive a range of different bottles to try each month and to learn about new styles, this may not be the best option for you.
Customer Reviews
We haven’t been able to find any substantial set of online reviews available for Wine Direct, which is a shame, because it’s always great to have a bit of social proof before taking the plunge.