Last Bottle routinely comes up as one of the best flash sale sites for wine discounts, so we thought we’d give them a try! Here’s our Last Bottle review.
How it works
Simply, Last Bottle purchases close-out wine inventories, and passes on great wine discounts to its customers in a “flash sale” format. Every day, they feature a wine at a highly discounted price – when their inventory is gone, (and sometimes they go really quickly!) you’re out of luck.
There is a fun twist – if your order happens to include the “last bottle” of the deal, you get a $50 credit! We’ve not yet been so lucky.
Our Last Bottle review
What we love:
- Besides being a great way to get wine discounts on great quality wines, we love that it’s NOT a wine club! We get to pick and choose exactly which wines we’re interested in and how many bottles we’d like to purchase. With most wine discount clubs, you’re tied into regular shipments of whatever they choose to send.
- Last Bottle will ship for free, for a minimum bottle purchase. The minimum purchase requirement varies based on the price of the wine. (We’ve never seen more than a 6 bottle purchase required for, say, a $10 bottle.) HOWEVER, they have “marathon days” in April and December, where the deals come fast and furious. (100 or more offers over a two or three day period.) If you’re purchasing during marathon days, you get free shipping on any size order! (Update December 2020: At least this year there have been more marathons than just April and December – I think there have maybe 4 this year and the December one is still to come! They’re fun, the free shipping is great, and, we’ve found you can often work with customer service and get your order out more quickly, if you need it.)
- In our experience, we’ve been very happy with the quality of wine for the price.
What’s not so hot:
- The “end lot” business model has it’s drawbacks. Yes, we get great wine discounts. We’ve found it can take time and patience to find an offer that’s of interest to us.
- The “retail price” and “best web price” sometimes, um….aren’t accurate, I’ll say. When we’re considering a purchase, we always check online to get a sense of what the real world discount might be (not that they guarantee the best price, but the percent discount they advertise certainly has impact on our level of excitement). Generally, we’ve found the wines to be a good price, but occasionally we’ve found other sources that are at least competitively priced.
- The marathon events are a lot of fun, BUT, sometimes (particularly in December) there can be a relatively long wait for your order to be pulled and shipped. I mean, we get it – you don’t want to staff up and train for a couple special events – just, be prepared for wait times that can approach a month for shipment.
- Customer service is exclusively via email – if you do have a question or a problem, there is a lag in getting a response. Our experience has been fine, and I will say they’ve been very good about keeping customers happy.
FREE MONEY TO TRY LAST BOTTLE?
If this Last Bottle review has whet your appetite to give them a try, why not start with a $10 credit? Use our referral link, create an account, and get $10 toward your first purchase! (Full disclosure – we get a $30 credit. Once you’re in, you can rack up your own $30 referral credits by spreading the word to friends and family!)
$10 credit on your first Last Bottle purchase, but ONLY if you use this link!
In sum…
We rate our experience with Last Bottle a pretty enthusiastic thumbs up.. We’ve found the quality of wines we’ve ordered, for the price point, has been excellent, which is really what it’s all about, right?
If this Last Bottle review whets your appetite for great wines at discount prices, you should check out our review of Underground Cellar – another close-out inventory merchant, but with a “gamification” twist (and a $50 credit for you on your first order with our referral code!). We also review our favorite site for wine and spirit gifts – Wine.com offers good and sometimes great prices, and a $59 unlimited free shipping program. Check out our review and don’t forget to use our referral code for $30 off your first order!