oenology

Cellar Thief Presents Three Killer Wine Steals Every Day

Filed under: Wine

We at Luxist love to try new things, and that includes exciting wines we've never tasted. Meet Cellar Thief, one of the internet's finest try-this-wine enablers.

Cellar Thief posts three wines at absolute steals four times per week; one a "special occasion" wine, one priced for "everyday" and a third which is exceptionally unusual in some way.

"We [my business partner Gordon and myself] were the geeks at the parties that all of our friends would ask for wine suggestions -- so, we decided to expand our social circle, take it online and help wineries figure out how to connect with passionate wine folks," says Ryan (pictured), one of the original Thiefs.

Don't worry, you don't have to buy blindly. Ample descriptions including notes about the winery and food pairings are provided, as well as CellarTracker ratings (CellarTracker averages ratings from various sources). They tell you the retail price, the lowest online price with shipping, and then their price, which for the sale period only is always shockingly low. With the purchase of three or more bottles, shipping on your whole order is just $5. Too good to be true? No -- they accomplish this by promising the wineries increased visibility and purchasing in bulk. Get there early, as I'm writing this just after noon and two of today's three wines have already sold out!

I asked Ryan via email what the name means, and he charmingly answered me in bullet points:

"The obvious: to steal something -- heck, if you are going to steal something, it might as well be good and not hurt anybody in the process.
The not-so-obvious, unless you are a total wine geek like me that used to work at wineries and got all geeked out about fermented grape juice: a 'thief' in wine is a long tube that winemakers use to extract wine from a barrel during the fermenting and aging process. They use it to extract a bit of wine to taste to be sure all is going well with the wine."

Ryan studied Social Entrepreneurship in business school and is passionate about giving back. "We are doing our small part by donating water for every bottle of wine we sell," he says -- humbly omitting that so far that "small part" comes to nearly 400,000 full days of clean water for underserved communities.

You don't have to join any clubs to participate in these amazing deals, just visit CellarThief.com and start buying the wines Ryan says "will make you giggle with joy."

Tags: Cellar Thief, daily deal, oenology, oenophile, wine