The Wellesley Wine Press: Rakuten 12x on Wine.com: How to Stack It

Accolades

I was quoted in The Boston Globe about legislation that would permit winery direct sales to Massachusetts:

“This is good news for Massachusetts wine enthusiasts, who will now be able to purchase wines they currently don’t have access to,” said Robert Dwyer of Wellesley, who blogs about wine. “This is also good news for Massachusetts in general since it will mean new revenues.”

I wrote this article in WellesleyWeston Magazine featuring local food & wine experts like Chef Ming Tsai, Mike O'Connell Jr., Chris Minervino, and Austin Moran. Check it out!

I shared my thoughts on the direct shipment of wine to Massachusetts with CBS Boston during hearings at the State House.

This site was listed as one of the Top 100 Wine Blogs:

https://alawine.com/wine-blog-rankings.html

Our Scoop the Spectator contest was mentioned on Palate Press:

"Bob Dwyer, a Massachusetts-based wine blogger, has created the coolest parlor game in wine, and for once it’s a wine contest that does not involve blind tasting.

I used to think the entire concept of a Top 100 list was silly. This year, mine was the first guess on Dwyer’s site."

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reached out for a quote on the expansion of the number of licenses each retailer in MA can hold:

"Robert P. Dwyer of Wellesley, who blogs about wine at thewww.wellesleywinepress.com, calls the state’s liquor laws bizarre and favors a wider availability of wine. For consumers, it would be more convenient to be able to buy wine at a supermarket while shopping for food, he said."

“You have this strange exclusion of wine, which in Europe is considered a grocery item,” said Mr. Dwyer. “Here it’s considered the demon rum.”

Wine Spectator picked up on our 2011 Scoop the Spectator contest with these remarks:

"trying to predict the annual Wine of the Year is a popular parlor game among enophiles. This year, blogger Wellesley Wine Press held a contest, with New York wine retailer Grapes the Wine Co. awarding a prize of a Kindle Fire e-reader to the first commenter to correctly guess this year's top wine before it was announced. Unfiltered was impressed with the number of Top 10 wines prognosticated by Wellesley's readers. "Senelwine" guessed Château de St.-Cosme Gigondas 2009, our No. 10 wine, "Mike M" guessed Quinta do Vallado Touriga Nacional Douro 2008, our No. 7 wine, "James Z" guessed Baer Ursa Columbia Valley 2008, our No. 6 wine, and "RichardPF" nailed it, winning the Kindle, and the respect of his wine-loving peers. Looks like Wellesley's readers know their wine."

Boston's CBS affiliate WBZ-TV stopped by to discuss why wineries still can't ship wine directly to MA consumers more than a year after courts ruled they should be able to.

WBUR, Boston's NPR news station, did an audio interview with me for a piece discussing MA Question 1: Repealing the Alcohol Sales Tax.

The Chicago Tribune's Bill Daley mentioned the site in Rosé: A wine for more seasons. I said "For me, they're like pumpkin spice coffee drinks: best enjoyed early in the season". Bill alsogave the site a shout-out for a piece the Capitol Case Clubcontributed about restaurant wine service. I thought it was a great example of how print wine writers can effectively engage wine bloggers.

The nice folks at Foodista, The Cooking Encyclopedia Everyone Can Edit, named this site Wine Blog of the Day for this entry featuring GoBYO. Thanks!

Budget Bacchus named this site Wine Blog of the Week. Check 'em out!

Boston University wine educator Stacy Woods mentioned this site alongside wine blogging powerhouses Vinography and Fermentation. Wow- that's great company to be in! Thanks- I appreciate it.

WBZ-TV, the Boston CBS affiliate, interviewed me aboutMassachusetts wine shipping laws. It was kind of surreal having a camera crew in our kitchen but we enjoyed it! Check it out:

Wine Enthusiast Magazine called me a "wine accessory guru". Thanks! I appreciate it.

NPR's Public Radio Kitchen linked to my pieces on "Syrah: The Steroids of the Pinot Noir World" and "Watching the Wine Community Rumble". Thanks for that! I am humbled, and I feel just a little bit like the Car Talk guys do when they say "And even though Roger Clemens stabs his radio with a syringe whenever he hears us say it, this is NPR: National Public Radio."

The Boston Globe's website has been linking to my recent entries as part of their expanded local coverage includingWellesley. I truly appreciate that as it has driven a lot of local traffic to this site.

It was really nice of Thomas Matthews, Executive Editor of Wine Spectator to leave a comment and then check back and answer some questions I had. Awesome guy! Check it out here. And here.

Thanks to The Boston Globe for including The Wellesley Wine Press in their list of local blogs in the Food & Drink section. Check it out here.

The Wellesley Wine Press was just added tohttps://wine.alltop.com. Alltop is an interesting topical take on sorting through the best sites on the Internet- check it out and see which sites are listed for topics you're most interested in.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving! Wherever this message finds you I wish for you good health, good cheer, and and some nice bottles of wine.

Wine.com 12x on Rakuten

The Rakuten shopping portal has bumped wine.com to 12x back today. I like Rakuten as a shopping portal because they reliably pay out, they're quick to credit when a purchase doesn't track, and you can elect to earn rewards as Membership Rewards, which can be worth more than 1 cent a piece.

The payout varies by day, and may go up or down this weekend, but I'd say 12x is pretty good (check rate history here).

If you're new to Rakuten get $40 back on your first $40 purchase through referral.

AA Simply Miles

Link your Mastercard through Simply Miles to earn some AA miles while shopping online. Current offer is 450 miles for $50+ spend but it bounces around.

Citi Offers

Check your Citi credit cards for $30 back on $100 as described in this post. Buy $100 gift cards (the codes arrive a few minutes later) to lock in the savings and avoid overshoot.

Promo Codes

Check this thread on Wine Berserkers for the lastest wine.com promo codes, like PPST921 for $20 off $50.

StewardShip

None of this works very well if you have to pay for shipping. Get StewardShip so you can pay a flat price for a year of shipping while stacking promo codes.

What to Buy

Wine.com prices vary by state and the assortment can be wildly different depending on which warehouse they fulfill your orders from.

The challenges sometimes can be finding combinations that add up to enough to trigger the promo code without overshoot. For example a lot of great wines are $49.99 and don't trigger a $20 back on $50 offer.

Affiliate links below (don't use these links if you're going through a shopping portal):

$8.99 Borsao Tinto 2019 (amazingly good below $10 before discounts)
$13.99 Columbia Crest H3 Merlot 2017 (bold fruit, a kiss of oak, great for the price)
$15.99 La Marca Prosecco (a reliable sparkler with broad appeal in an attractive bottle)
$29.99 Taylor Fladgate 10 Year Old Tawny (nice to have around when it's cold at the holidays)
$49.99 Three Sticks Price Family Estates Pinot Noir 2020 (never had it, prior vintage scored 95 points and landed on Wine Spectator's Top 100 list)

Bottom Line

Wine.com gets dunked on for a lot of reasons. Mundane selection. High prices. Bad fulfillment.

But my experience lately, shipping mostly to Massachusetts but also Florida, has been good. Wines have been arriving the next day even when ordering after noon.

If you have the patience for stacking these discounts and they stock wines you're interested in, it's hard to imagine finding better pricing - especially without having to leave the house.

Baseline Quality
Baseline Price
Quality (50-100)
Price ($)
wwpQPR
Value:

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Rakuten 12x on Wine.com: How to Stack It

Thursday, November 25, 2021

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