Wine.woot.com originally had one offer a week. It soon became popular enough to do two offers a week -- one on Monday and one on Thursday. They also figured one of the best ways to sell wine on a website, even with a loyal following, was through samples and education. The education over there is completely nifty. It just is. The wine-makers and -sellers often (read: almost always) visit the site while their offer is available and answer questions about the making and cellaring of the wine. When I started visiting wine.woot regularly, I was entirely of the opinion that wine was too expensive to ever really buy online and I was only going to visit for the educational properties as I was just starting to drink wine. But eventually the deals were too good, and I gave in and purchased.
I'm still pretty cheap when it comes to wine, so I read obsessively all the thoughts others offer on the wine before I decide to go in for it. It's got to be pretty skippy for me to be willing to try it out because when the wine isn't expensive, it usually comes in 4 - 6 packs. I don't want six bottles of crappy wine hanging about the place, you know? Anyway, this served me well and good until the mead showed up.
Last week, they offered up a bit of mead. Mead is delicious. It's great. So when I saw the mead for sale, I knew I wanted it. Especially as it was coming cheaper than I could get it locally and had been well reviewed before. I was also excited because knowing I wanted it so swiftly meant I would be able to participate in something that sets the site apart from anything I've ever heard of before. By making an early purchase, I was in the group eligible to "labrat". Every week wine.woot sends free bottles of wine to random purchasers to taste and report back on. They still get their full order later, but they also play a part in convincing other to buy or not to buy. You cannot, that I know of, cancel an order after tasting it.
Anyway, I wouldn't be telling this story if I didn't get a FedEx delivery on Friday of two bottles of mead: regular and raspberry. As I mentioned before, I really started hanging out there to learn more about wine, so I definitely don't have a super refined palate or dictionary of winese at my disposal. All I have are opinions and hopefully a coherent form of expressing them. (There are many people with both a refined palate and full mastery of wine-speak at wine.woot, I'm just not one of them.) I was, of course, ridiculously excited at the prospect of free booze and the chance to tell others about it and have them listen to me.
Friday night, I popped open those babies, tasted, and reported like a good rat. We tried the mead chilled. We tried it mulled. I say "we" because I got other opinions. I posted at night, I posted again in the morning. I probably took my duty waaaaaay too seriously. But it was all worth it for one comment I got:
Great report. While I(and probably many others) value the reports from the "pros" here, yours and those like yours are equally important... esp to non-pros like myself(rpm- lots of corks to pull, and remember the wines). Actually, I considered your report professional... just without some of the "winese" terms.Be still my beating heart! I'm so easily taken in by flattery! I put my opinions out there and was rewarded! This experience has actually encouraged me to apply to do the same thing (put my opinions out there) in a category I'm a bit better with. As such, I've applied to review tea elsewhere. It's a bit odd how this one experience that was totally up to chance has completely given me confidence in the writing area.
It helped in pushing the "publish" button originally that, um, after enough mead you don't worry so much. And now it helps because I've got positive feedback.
-- Lu
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