About Bright Cellars
Bright Cellars is a wine club founded in 2015 with the belief that a computer can pick a personalized selection of wines for you that you'll love. In this, the dawning of the age of artificial intelligence, it is no wonder a plethora of companies have popped up with the intention of leveraging computers to demystify the process of selecting wine.
How they learn about your wine preferences
The first step for any artificial intelligence interaction is 'training.' This means someone provides the algorithm with some basic data from which to make decisions. In the case of Bright Cellars, this means a quiz about your wine and taste preferences. They, like their competitors with palate quizzes, ask you about your chocolate preferences, your tea preferences, what you drink when you're out of wine, what kind of fruit juice you like, how you like to pair your wine (this is a lifestyle question), and how adventurous you are.
Their Wine Director (a certified sommelier) 'and her team look for wines that fit flavour profiles represented by their membership.' Wait, what? Yes, that's what they said. So, here's how I'm interpreting this: Their algorithm understands body, acidity, bitterness, sweetness, and astringency (a combination of alcohol and tannins), but their customers don't. Their customers rate wines for all of their properties, not calling out a specific aspect. The wine team's job, therefore, is to find wines that fit the algorithmically-defined properties of their customers' favourite wines and then order more of those types of wines.
A bright spot in the Bright Cellars offering is their cheese program, now called The Tasting Board and hosted on a separate website. There are two options for their cheese program. One is to just sign up for their 'cheese of the month' club tailored to your personal cheese preferences and enjoy both a 5th cheese in the first shipment as well as half-off your first shipment when you sign up. Additionally, there is a surprise gift in every shipment from The Tasting Board. The second option is presented when you enrol in Bright Cellars where you can add a cheese pairing option to your monthly shipments, free gift not included.
The cheeses were all excellent, even if not to everyone's tastes, and the pairings were fun. The honeyed goat cheese and Sauvignon Blanc pairing was fantastic. I also really enjoyed the Merlot and montamore. The reasons we love this program so much are: 1) Easy to share with others; 2) Introduces us to new cheeses we'd never try on our own; 3) Somebody else figured out which wines to pair with which cheeses (because despite a library's worth of books on the subject, it's not an easy thing to do).
Membership Benefits
Bright Cellars offers a 'Delight Guarantee. If you're matched with a bottle you don't love, contact your Bright Cellars Wine Concierge who will help you select a free replacement bottle in your next month's experience!' By our standards, this is the same as a satisfaction guarantee. Their refund policy in the Terms & Conditions document does not contain or match the language on their homepage, but we believe they'll honor the Delight Guarantee as stated.
I have to say, I am quite impressed with the service I've received from every person I've interacted with at Bright Cellars. And while you might be thinking, 'but you're not a regular customer, and they really want to please you,' well, then take my feedback with a little healthy scepticism. The truth is, I think customer service is one of the aspects of this company that sets them apart from most other wine clubs. The team members I've worked with are very courteous, professional, responsive, and really love their company.
They are called 'Bright Cellars exclusives - custom brands with custom labels,' said You, adding that the rest of the wines are from small producers, with some national brands in the mix.' Since then, Bright Cellars is now using 100% custom-made wine. Since the wines are custom-made, we have no idea if the prices are good. We did notice that non member prices are £20 a bottle (minimum of 4 bottles) so the club prices at least reflect a 25% discount from their regular prices. Likewise, the gift shipment pricing is £18.75 per bottle delivered, a 6% discount from their regular prices.
Bright Cellars Gifts
Bright Cellars offers gifts in the form of gift certificates which can be redeemed online. Every wine they ship comes wrapped in teal tissue with a cheery Bright Cellars sticker holding it shut, so gift-wrap is covered. They also offer three different ways to notify your recipient of their gift: 1) Email (it's instant, so order the day you want them to receive the notification); 2) Gift Envelope 3) Gift Box, includes corkscrew and confetti.
Bright Cellars has a 'wine cave,' a space where it educates employees about the wines on its platform. The startup has two certified sommeliers on its staff who help get new workers up to speed on the company's offerings.
Bright Cellars has four conference rooms, each named after one of the wine brands Bright Cellars offers. The Mojave Rain room, for example, features a large conference table and a picture of a bear on the wall. Mojave Rain was Bright Cellars' first exclusive wine.
The space is open and accessible, allowing the entire office to see what each different team is working on, CEO and co-founder Richard Yau explained.
'We tried to make the whole office into a collaborative space,' he said. 'The number one focus is creating an environment where we can foster energy, where we can foster creativity … where people don't feel glued to their desks.'
The office has the feel of a space you might find in Silicon Valley, which is something that helps Bright Cellars stand out in the Wisconsin tech scene.
'We've got Milwaukee character, but we're also a very clearly a high-growth, fast-paced startup,' he said.
Last March, Bright Cellars raised $8.5 million in a round led by Revolution Ventures. Its other backers include Cream City Venture Capital, the early-stage venture arm of Northwestern Mutual, and Cleveland Avenue, a food-focused venture fund from former McDonald's CEO Don Thompson. Bright Cellars has raised more than $13 million to date.