About the Author

author photo

The French Cycling Bicycle Gourmet - French Country Travel Life Film Maker and Author. Your non-snobby Gourmet Guide to food, wine travel and Lifestyle Adventure!

See All Posts by This Author

French Country Travel Life Wine Online

 

bicyclegourmet.com

 French Country Travel Life Wine Online is becoming an increasing reality. It least for the ordering part of the process. There has yet to be a satisfactory(if any) “virtual tasting.” But, DA BG doesn’t doubt that somewhere, some digital wine nerd is crunching his O’s and 1’s trying to “make it so.”

Yea, verily, although Online French Wine discovery/ordering is picking up steam – it will have to go some before it replaces the sagess (thats like…you know…like..”smartness”) of yer local wine shop nutter, or the prices at the mammoth-gigantic-we-will-never-be-undersold-wine warehouse.

my fellow winophilic Eric Pfanner fills out the “online opus.”

“The Internet accounts for only a tiny fraction of worldwide wine sales. Most people buy their wine at local shops or supermarkets. But online sales have been growing strongly for a few years in Britain, Germany and some other European markets, as well as China and Japan. There are signs of progress in the United States, where regulatory hurdles have been a problem.

At the end of last year, Amazon opened an online wine shop in the United States. Presumably the e-commerce giant hopes to do for Bordeaux or Barolo what it has done for books: Make a previously unimaginable selection available to anyone, anywhere, at any time and at a bargain price.

But Internet wine sales in the United States have been complicated by Byzantine rules. Some states forbid online sales, others restrict cross-border shipments. Others maintain monopolies over distribution. So Amazon is starting with only a handful of states and the District of Columbia.

Europe, so fragmented and divided in other ways, is more coherent and unified in this niche of the economy. From my home in France I can order wine online from almost any other European Union country and expect it to show up at my door in a few days.

The only variable is cost. For some reason, Italian parcel services tend to charge more than €50 to ship a 12-bottle case of wine to France, about $70. German delivery companies often do the job, faster, for less than €20. There you have the euro crisis in a nutshell — or a case of wine. Still, my cellar would be a lot poorer without those occasional deliveries from the sunny south.

The most advanced online wine market is probably Britain. Wine Intelligence, a research firm in London, estimates that up to 15 percent of all retail wine sales in Britain take place online — perhaps five times the U.S. percentage.

Growth in Britain has been led by supermarket chains like Tesco, which have been using wine as a way to promote Internet grocery shopping services. But specialist British wine merchants like  Berry Brothers and Rudd were also early online innovators, opening e-commerce sites well over a decade ago.

“Not only do we like wine, but we also like the Internet,” said Antonia Branston, an analyst at the research firm Euromonitor in London. More and more British online wine specialists, like Laithwaites, Slurp and Nakes Wines, are expanding to other countries in Europe, the United States or Asia. Slurp, for example, opened sites in Germany and France last year. While the prospect of a British Web site trying to sell wine to the French might sound a bit like carrying coals to Newcastle, Slurp insists there is a place for it.

“Basically, France is very focused on French wine,” said Audrey Bouttier, who oversees Slurp’s Continental European sites. “We are trying to do something a little bit different. Especially among young people, it’s becoming very hip to bring something other than the traditional bottle of Bordeaux to a dinner party.”

So Slurp offers a vast selection of what the French call “vins du monde” (wines of the world), or imported wines.

Greater choice is one of the biggest benefits of Internet wine shopping, but beware of exaggerated claims. While I often buy wine via the Internet, I rarely use generalist sites that promise a bit of everything — some Burgundy, some Bordeaux, some Australian shiraz and maybe a bit of Napa Valley cabernet, too.”

 Read more HERE.

THROW ME A BONE HERE, PEOPLE!

What are ya thinkin’?

 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

27 Responses to “French Country Travel Life Wine Online”

  1. carvin anderson says:

    once again france seems to be light years ahead of the “mighty” USA when it comes to no nonsense wine selling.

  2. reg dwight says:

    you got that right carvin! woe be the american wine lover who lives in a “can’t ship there state!”

  3. candance meeker says:

    very cool article..especially interesting the part about the brits shipping wine to france!

  4. bonnie parker says:

    slurp. Really? what imagination! (lol!)

  5. alvin winterman says:

    i say good luck to the brits trying sell wine to the french. but, i guess they still think they’re “great” britian.

  6. betty forman says:

    ditto alvin on “great”..sure isn’t their health care system or their economy. So, what exactly ARE they “great” in?

  7. marvin thomas says:

    hey folks..leave the brit bashing and still on topic please.

  8. henk mancini says:

    nice article…but i can’t imagine it ever being “unhip” to bring a bottle of bordeaux to ANY dinner party!

  9. amy drummond says:

    with ya there henk! -..and, uh….when are you coming -to dinner? (lol)

  10. debbie harrop says:

    hey amy…more to the point…..what bordeaux is henk bringing?

  11. anderson carter says:

    hey ladies…cool your jets!…or we’ll be sailing into “virtual wine tasting territory!”

  12. brewster carson says:

    “basically france is very focused on french wines” (DUH!) good luck lady…you’ve got a WAY uphill battle there!

  13. sven nordstromm says:

    very interesting post for us here in sweden to learn just how unfortunately confused wine distribution is in america. we should be thankful for our more logical system here in europe.

  14. angela bustamente says:

    you’re right sven….our system here in the states as a total disaster….everyone fighting over their piece of the pie…and as usual, the consumer loses.

  15. carlo fachinni says:

    i hear ya angela…so much for “free enterprise!”

  16. randy pepper says:

    it’ll be interesting to see how amazon gets around the current restrictive/confused distribution regulations.

  17. tom reston says:

    randy..agree….but “the big A” won’t get around…..their economic muscle will blast the regs into cyber-space!

  18. liz farrell says:

    totally right on tom….think about it….what state with restrictive wine buying laws……that sees the non-restrictive state next door BANKING with wine taxes, is gonna stay restrictive?

  19. ned perkins says:

    the mystery to me is why it’s taken so long for the UISA wine industry to wake up and smell the coffee!

  20. paul parducci says:

    ned..it’s YOU who need to wake up and smell the coffee……the wine industry (i’m one of them) is not the stumbling block…it’s the antiquated protectionist laws that are the sand in the oyster here.

  21. evans winston says:

    i’ve had the same (expensive) experience with italian parcel companies. within france, no problem.

  22. santo domingo says:

    mr winston..for me the issue with the french delivery services is that they either deliver almost instantly, or weeks later. anyone else with the same experience?

  23. cyril parker says:

    hey guys..problems with delivery service are small potatoes to us here in the “land of the brave and home of the free” we’d be happy to deal with those hassles if only we could get the wine!

  24. jean pierre argoud says:

    in defence of english who want to sell wine to us in france, i have tasted some of their wines and find them not too bad…..so, they may have some success with younger people who always search for something different.

  25. steven bresner says:

    it’s amazing (in a bad way) to think that we can get almost every product and service online in the usa…except wine in all states!
    that’s what’s incredible about technology; not the latest “app.”

  26. paul marshall says:

    steve…agree 100%…but it’s not “technology” that’s the villain.
    the “bad guys” are antiquated laws…and the losers who enforce them….

  27. cynthia goodman-spears says:

    ditto paul..and making us all (wine)losers!

Leave a Reply

Loading Facebook Comments ...