Is Firstleaf wine subscription service any good?
Sometimes around mid-March, I stopped going out because the virus situation was escalating. Since I wasn't able to go out and shop, I started to look into all kinds of food subscription services. While looking at wine subscription services like Firstleaf and Winc, I decided to try Firstleaf because I liked the deal Firstleaf offered, and 6 bottles to start with was perfect for me.
To start, Firstleaf lets you go through a series of questions, and then they make a recommendation based on your preferred taste in wine. I tried the questions on my desktop, iPad, and iPhone. Interestingly, they were a little different on different devices. On iPad and desktop, I wasn't able to swap after they presented their recommendation. On the iPhone, I was able to swap out wines that didn't appear to me. However, there was a glitch in the wine swapping process. At one point, the selection remained the same after I swapped them. Anyway, after a few tries, I was able to subscribe and made my first order.
I subscribed on Tuesday, and my order detail said I would get my wine on Saturday. I thought that was fast and I was very excited about it. Unfortunately, the wines arrived on Monday instead of Saturday. I assumed the delay was due to all the craziness in the shipping business at the time. The wines arrived safe and sound. They were well packaged, and nothing broke. Most of the packaging materials were recyclable, which was great. The wines came with some fancy cards that give you more information about the wines, help you learn about the flavor, and how to pair them with food.
Since receiving the wines, I have been drinking almost every day, which is not typical for me. I usually sip on the weekend, but I really like to try out what they sent me so that I could decide if I wanted to stick with them. Generally, all the wines Firstleaf sent me were quite good. They were smooth and easy to drink. Are the wines worth $15? Absolutely! I liked the wines enough that I decided to order more!
The way they work is, you drink the wines, rate them on their website, and they will give you a different selection of wines for the next shipment. You can preview the recommendation and swap them out if you don't like some of them. What I didn't know was, the wines I wanted were not going to stay on my recommendation page unless I ordered them right away, and they only let you do 6 swaps each month. By the time I was ready to have them ship me the next box, I wasn't able to swap a couple of wines that I wasn't sure. I emailed them, but I haven't heard anything back for a few days. I called their number, and it was a voicemail mailbox, and that's the moment I decided to cancel my subscription. I liked their wines enough to continue, but I am not comfortable with companies that lack customer service. Perhaps, they will improve the quality of their customer service when all things calm down. For now, I am going back to drinking my whiskey.
