Wow World of Wines

Worst place to order from. They are nice in person, but horrible with delivery services. They never rang the doorbell and after 45 minutes, they said they would come back. The guy said he would redeliver immediately, and it was another 25 minutes and no one showed.
Definitely go there in person so you don’t deal with the bullshit.

This review is regarding the online delivery service: I ordered wine, and it took over an hour and a half to be delivered. Then, I looked in the bag, and they had sent the wrong wine. After contacting the store, no attempt was made to reconcile their error.

Great staff, great collection of wines and spirits! Awesome hours and free delivery! Different wine tasting on weekends. What else can one ask for? Highly recommended!

I AM IN ABSOLUTE SHOCK. I bought a bottle of Malbec (retail 10.99) on my walk home from work. I get home and the cork breaks, I taste the bottle and it’s absolutely horrible and I dump the bottle out and it’s full of sediment. Clearly a bad bottle or cork. No big deal, right? So I thought.
I took the bottle back, literally 20 minutes after it’s initial purchase, and because I had dumped the entire bottle out prior to returning, they refused to give me another bottle. I had taken a picture on my phone and showed them the sediment at the bottom of my sink and the answer was still no. The brilliant guy behind the counter says «so if we’re a restaurant and you eat all the food and then complain and want it for free, we should give it to you?»
He said that there was no guarantee they would be reimbursed from the distributor and I asked him what that had to do with me. I indicated I was there customer (mind you, I’ve lived down the street for 2.5 years and spent hundreds of dollars in the store) and it was their responsibility to make me whole, not the distributor. He just kind of stared back at me.
Again, this bottle’s retail was $ 10.99, so the wholesale was most likely $ 4 – 5. I asked if they were willing to lose me as a customer over a $ 5 bottle and all he said is if the distributor is willing to replace the bottle, he will give me a new bottle at a later date. Otherwise I could get a 15% discount on a new bottle. I walked out.
My parents ran their own retail store for 25 years and I’ve personally witnessed tens, if not hundreds of similar transactions in which my parents made their customer whole EVERY SINGLE TIME. I have never in my life (32 years) experienced such lack of awareness or common sense, let alone poor customer service. Before this I would have recommended WOW, but now I will never again spend another cent in the store. And I recommend you do the same.

Why not buy your wine here? I’ll break it down into easy talking points for you:
* Very poor, rude customer service
* Very ignorant about the wine basics (whaa? RED Zinfindel)?
* It has a shady feel to it, in fact, it feels like a front.
* Prices about 20−30% more expensive than neighboring cute wine shops
* Above mentioned cute wine shops in the ‘hood have:
^ excellent customer service
^ expertise in wine
^ cheaper prices
^ Sophisticated ambiance-​the SWAT team is not about to bust down the doors

The place is cute. Humble and has a bit of wooden/​rustic feel to it. Wines are displayed nicely.
The staff: very nice and eager to help out. All staff members have smiles, never give any attitude, have plenty of patience with a pro or novice customer.
Selection: It is enough to satisfy your taste-​buds. You will leave with something likeable.

Convenient and inexpensive. Not a large selection but definitely good if you need liquor at 11:55pm.

PRICES/​SELECTION: They try to have many of the same wines as both Vintage and Best Cellars but not the full selection… at comparable prices, some even cheaper and some more expensive (ie. why is the Skinny Girl Marg so much here?).
ORGANIZATION: The wines are organized by category.
CONS: Unlike Vintage Grape, it lacks the «cute wine shop» appeal (it just looks like a typical liquor store) and there is no real «expertise» behind each bottle. Like, I would not ask them which wine would go best with my Hummus Kitchen or anything.
MAJOR SELLING POINTS:
[1] ITS OPEN TIL 12!!! How many times in life do you find that you need a bottle of wine on the UES at 10 PM and nothing around is really open?
[2] THEY DELIVER!!!
[3] 1 block from subway so it’s on the way home. No detours.

Just opened, and not quite ready for prime time.
On the plus side, the staff are extremely pleasant and eager to please.
However, half the shelves are bare. The other half held wines like Woodbridge, Santa Margherita, Yellow Tail, Kendall Jackson, Korbel champagne.
I’m no wine snob, but even I know that’s not very interesting. The manager told me that he wanted customers to make suggestions and he would stock wines (and liquor) according to the feedback. I don’t know if that strategy is a good one, if this is the result.
Maybe they don’t get the Upper East Side? (The other WOW location is in Birmingham, Michigan.)