If you’re one of our close friends or follow this blog, you know that the online wine retailer My Wines Direct recently gave us a coupon to try out their site. It was like that old TV show Supermarket Sweep, but we were buying wine… through a website… and there was no giant bag of chips with a $500 check strapped to it.

Shipping the Goods
My Wines Direct has no shipping fees. So we managed to get 6 wines for around $100. The wine prices ranged from $10 to $26. We shipped the wine to New Jersey, where we were going to have our tasting party. MWD doesn’t ship to Pennsylvania (yet) or a few of the lamer states in the union. Check out the earlier link in this paragraph for more information on where and how they ship.

The wine was shipped very quickly. It arrived just two days after ordering. You can actually purchase guaranteed 2-day shipping for a $12 fee. But since we got our wine just as quickly using standard shipping, I wouldn’t take this option unless you really needed the wine right away. (And I don’t think we were getting any special treatment in our order.)

A Party
A couple Sunday’s ago, we threw a little tasting at a friend’s house to go through this cache of wine. We were able to drink all of the wines at the same time (which would have been hard for just Kim and I), get a few more ratings on the wines, and share the love with some of our closest friends. It was a good time.

Kim made some really great food: meatballs with a Indian-inspired cucumber sauce and some prosciutto-wrapped cantalope. We also had a lovely cheese selection spread from our local Giant grocery store.

What about the wine?
You can see the notes and ratings on all of the wine we drunk here: WineLog MWD Party Wines.

Overall, I thought all of the wines were middle-of-the road. None stood out to me as really good. On the other hand, none of them were bad either. I wanted some drama to come up over the wines, but the general consensus was that they were all okay and drinkable.

My highest rated was the 2005 River View Chardonnay, with a 4. Other folks rated it below average though, so I was a little alone on this one. I drunk it fairly late in the evening, and I think it was a refreshing change up to the other wines.

The most memorable wine of the night was the 2004 Sin Zin Zinfandel. This wine also scored above average with the other drinkers at the party. It was a lot better tasting after it had breathed in the bottle for about an hour. So I would love to try this one properly decanted.

Summary
So that was our experience with the wines from My Wines Direct. MWD doesn’t have every wine out there, usually keeping an inventory of 30-60 wines. But their wines are hand-selected by their wine buyers and other members of the site, which should ensure a higher quality. (Read more about their wine selection process.)

MWD also has some decent package deals, with themes like Barbecue Bests and Red Jewels. If you’re looking to buy some wine online and don’t have a specific wine in mind, take a look at My Wines Direct. Their selection process should hide you from the lower quality wines. Even if you do have a specific wine in mind, check their site out first as the fast and free shipping is hard to beat.