Thoughts on CASEMATES so far?
1So, so far I haven’t purchased anything. I did go in on a “share” that someone else purchased. Picked up my bottles and was obligated to “share” one of them with someone else who I realized was not really very close to me. So I offered to just ship the bottle to them on my dime and call it a day. But I’ve hardly been home and haven’t even done the ship so I’m sure that person is p*ssed at me.
Also although I’m not afraid to spend a buck or two too many on a bottle of wine I’m here for the deal. So that means the deal is 12 bottles, not 4. So I’m not buying 4. But I don’t really want 12 of anything and doing the share thing, for me, isn’t working out.
Anyone other thoughts?
- 13 comments, 7 replies
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My thoughts…oh never mind I thought you were talking about work!
I have ordered twice (Pavi, Rasmussen) and have gone in for the case each time. Shipping has been superb as I need to reroute to the local Walgreen. No shipping issues to date. MA has also been regularly a shipable state and that is an improvement over Woot.
I have NOT mated yet, mainly because of my geographic isolation.(you can giggle and offer a more interesting explanation)
I do agree that the price difference between the case and the partial is for me a deterrent from ordering the partial case. Like you I always want to get the best price.
I also bought a fair bit of wine over on Woot during the closing days and that is also dampening my demand.
If I was to hit it big today and to do so I’d need to start playing the horses or whatever, I’d have jumped at around 20% of the offerings. Budget and inventory are the main factors holding me back not selection or price.
I’d grade out this new venture an A-,with just a little room to improve.
Thanks for the feedback. the small lot offers are still the best price around. and very good deals. The case offer is better simply by passing the logistical savings forward.
I bought quite a few cases so far. Too many as my closet is overflowing. Its the only place I have for wine. Some of the deals I just could not pass up.
The curation part is what also appeals to me and the comments here. We like wine, but I am not really good at picking the good stuff or describe in many words what I like about a particular one. So I like that others are doing that work for me. So far I have not been disappointed.
I always get the full case as meeting up with total strangers is not something I would be comfortable with anyway. I haven’t really seen anyone from my area in any case.
I mostly buy wine to drink, rather than store long term. I don’t really have the best storage solution for wine. Closets can get hot in summer here.
Since many of the 4 bottle prices are in fact a good deal, just not as good as the case deal, maybe I just need to get over it and order a few 4 packs. Such problems!
There have been some very interesting, very nice wines offered. I do like the quality of what we’ve been seeing.
@kaolis I view the difference as the price I have to pay for not having unlimited space.
I’ve liked some of the offers, and not been interested in others. I have not bought a case, although I’ve been very tempted (I was the most tempted on the Laurel Glen, but common sense finally won out). I’m not particularly sensitive on price, but do consider price to be informative on whether or not I’ll be happy with the purchase.
The most recent offering of Merlot caused me to buy a nice one (Waterbrook Reserve, 2014) today; I love Merlot, but I’d just as soon give money for one I know will be delicious.
On the whole, I’ve been happy with Casemates. It’s more like Wine Woot was in earlier times, and now that the lab ratting seems to have settled down, that’s been very useful. Hopefully the next few offers will be whites, or other wines that don’t interest me, so that I can catch up on the extra wine that seems to be around me, right now.
I was in on the exchange with @kaolis (sorry about the misunderstanding on the extra bottle - when you agreed to take it I thought you knew where it needed to go), and was happy for the way it worked out. Incidentally, I will be making my 2nd (3rd/4th) exchange today – taking possession of 3 bottles of the Laurel Glen (one of which will be passed on to another Casemater in my town) and passing along 3 bottles of the original Stewart Cellars order (shared with @kaolis) to be passed along to another recipient (who will also be getting some of the Laurel Glen). I was thinking that this sharing thing is starting to work out quite well!
@Mark_L ahh, it was my fault not paying attention.
When I get home I’ll get the bottle out, bottle and ship on me. All good.
I’ve only purchased once so far, mostly due to being overstocked and lack of consumption. I think the deals have been pretty good, with the small lots being equal to or better than most of the WW deals were and the case deals being pretty killer as a general rule.
One side note, I think that based on my personal constraints, and the current set-up, I am less likely to jump in on something I am not already familiar with, but nice case deals on things that are a known commodity to me are much more enticing. Not sure how much it would throw off the structure, and I know that three bottles isn’t an ideal shipping quantity, but I would love to see a 3 - 6 - 12 format for bottle offerings.
@North316 Great idea, the 3, 6,12.
@kaolis @North316 @winedavid49 @dave
or at least allow the purchase of two of the smaller offers, and not make the limit only one as for case purchases.
The case pricing is killer. Makes it hard to resist. It seems like the quality of wines offered here have been a step up from those in the waning months for WW, excluding the crazy offers from the likes of Peter, etc.
@jmdavidson1 That was what I was trying to say in a far more succinct manor.
I’m with @North316 in feeling that the smaller lot deals are the equivalent of the deals we got on wine.woot, so the case deals are pretty sweet.
I have purchased both small lots and full cases. The reason I do the “How much more are you saving…” posts is because I always want to figure that out for my own benefit anyway, so decided I might as well share the info. If there’s only a 15% extra discount, I am probably inclined to buy the smaller lot and not worry about finding peeps to share but when I see 25-30% additional savings, I am willing to do some groundwork to take advantage of the extra savings.
I am new to Casemates and I wasn’t a WW member. I’ve loved the approach, the offers, the wines. I’ve met a few new wine lovers locally, we’ve met and exchanged/split cases at wine shop tastings, and it’s been a fun and inexpensive way to fill in my collection. I think the pace has been good as well- big red, medium red, white, known producers, new producers, bubbly. For a while I was interested in every offer. Our group actually got confused on who was in on a split because we were splitting so many- a fun problem to have! Keep up the good work CM!
I was not a WW member, so casemates is my first taste of this format and I love it. I’ve done 4 cases so far as well as going in on one split from the forums. Value and quality has been on point. I would probably order more cases as well as try out more smaller lots (3/4-packs) if shipping wasn’t such a hassle. I’m never around when Fedex likes to stop by so I either have to ship to a local pickup location or ship to a friend that has a door guy. I rely primarily on public transit (Chicago woo) and carrying a case of wine across the city isn’t my idea of fun.
I loved WW. I love Casemates even more - not for the sharing, but for mostly even better dealz (I don’t have to worry about the sharing - I just split with friends if need be). I also have too much wine - whatever can I do about that? Ghost out - spirits are calling.
@NightGhost The major upgrade from WW is that my State is regularly on the ship list. Partly the law changed which made it easier, but some of the credit most go WD in selecting wineries with licences in many states. The ship list is regularly larger here than WW.
I’d say the wine chatter was more diverse on WW vs Mates. We get real good tasting insight here but it tends to come from a smaller crowd.
The Labrat program seems to rival the preAmazon days here, and that is a real strength.
Keep up the good work.
@foxrunner I pretty much agree with everything you said (I don’t know as much about the shipping states, because I’m lucky that my state - NY - has been on most every list). I have noticed that more winemakers include key statistics about their wines than they did in the early days of WW, which I find really helps me predict whether I’ll enjoy them.