Choice isn’t always a good thing. With so many online wine shops popping up at the moment surfing the web for your favourite drop can be as confusing as the supermarket wine aisle. Which is why it’s a relief to introduce you to dropwines, a new online wine retailer who believes that less is more by focusing on offering ten wines a week that they promise will taste as good as they’re priced.
I took five minutes with wine buyer in chief Richard Verney to explain what they’re up to and why, if you know what you’re looking for, he could offer you much more than just a bottle of wine…..!
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Miss B: Is dropwines the next Naked Wines?
Richard: I hope not! We offer 10 wines at any one time, with clear and very engaging reviews, plus videos explaining what the wines are like and hopefully exposing some interesting facts about the wine, as well as any related stories, be that information about travels through the region where the wine comes from, or anecdotes about where the wines have been enjoyed by the team. We also aim to entertain through our very loosely-related-to-wine blog posts…
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Miss B: What do people say about dropwines?
Richard: That we’re wonderful! I had my first fan from ‘The You Tube’ stop me in Victoria Station the other day – very surreal – he came up, shook me by the hand and said ‘Richard… dropwines Richard… yes?’ then proceeded to impersonate me tasting wines. He then disappeared as quickly as he had appeared back into the crowd.
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Miss B: What’s the story behind dropwines?Richard: We’ve been founded within a hip and thrusting internet business in Camden, whose aim is to improve all things internet. They noticed that buying wine was often confusing and fraught with dangers and not exactly even 20th Century, let alone 21st Century and wanted to make a clear, concise site that offered true value for money, while also being entertaining and informative. We have a small team of six people, who are passionate about delivering the best wine to our customers.
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Miss B: I can become a VIP of dropwines; what does that mean?
Richard: You get a further discount from our retail pricing which is essentially our cost price of delivering the wine to you. For legal reasons we have to call this ‘wholesale’ pricing… This is really for our customers who wish to buy at least 6 bottles of wine a month and are spending above £8 a bottle on average. Oh, and there are lots of other benefits too – free delivery on all orders, personal recommendations, invitations to wine tastings, VIP only wines, first dibs at limited availability wines and a direct dial to ask me any question you want! (literally any question…)
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Miss B: Do you have a special message for Miss Bouquet readers?
Richard: Goodness… Hello? How do you do? I’m Richard. I know about wine, but don’t worry I won’t bore on to you about it, or patronise you, in fact I just want you to drink wine and enjoy it, in fact I’m generally more interested in food, chatting to people and walking my dog Bernie. Oh and I’m single, 35 and have all my own teeth if you happen to be looking!
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If you’re after a wine recommendation try dropwines’ Côté Mas Piquepoul Frisant NV, an exclusive from the Languedoc in the south of France but hailed as ‘the new Prosecco’ (VIP price £7.92, standard price £8.99) or if you’re just after Richard’s phone number let me know……!
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