Discover more about Spanish wines
For some reason Spain seems to be alone in offering wines shipped direct from Spain to your doorstep. Personally I think this is potentially a great idea if it allows access to wines which would not otherwise be available in the UK, and providing the prices including delivery are reasonable. But why just Spain, and not Italy or France or Portugal??
The latest such merchant to come to our attention is Excel Wines, an online merchant who ships direct. “We are three expatriates living in Bilbao, Spain: Anna Axén from Sweden, Sandy Tay from Malaysia and Ane Miren Lambe from Ireland. Apart from being good friends, we share a love of fine wines and, living in Spain, we have come to appreciate Spanish wines in particular. In addition, we have met wine lovers both inside and outside of Spain over the years and we have come to the conclusion that the new modern, fine Spanish wines are the best kept secret in the wine world.”
Their list looks interesting but the carriage charges look a bit steep compared to UK delivery - e.g. €58.30 for up to 3 cases of wine - that’s not far short of £50 at today’s poor exchange rate (£1=€1.21). But if there is something special which you cannot get otherwise in the UK, then you may consider it worth it.
More interesting is their Wine Blog which is entertaining and informative - learn more about Spanish rosé (Rosado or Clarete?), and about some new Spanish wine appellations.
For more info see Excel Wines
4 comments
We’re so pleased that you find excelWines.com an interesting site. We’re also delighted that you enjoy our blog, particularly as it is a new venture for us and we’re still such novices. Any suggestions for future topics?
With regards to our high transport costs, I’m afraid that’s what it costs. We make no profit on the transport - what we charge is exactly what we pay for the transport and, unlike some other companies, we do not hide the transport costs in the price of the wines.
As we specialise in wines from smaller, boutique bodegas, many of our wines are not that easy to get hold of in the UK. In fact, we pride ourselves on having a selection of wines that are not that well-known but that we believe are excellent and will eventually be well-known, if not exactly household names among wine connoisseurs at least.
In any case, we are always delighted to source any Spanish wine for a client - all it takes is to send us an e-mail and we will do our best to obtain that wine and at the best price we can get.
I recently purchased a selection of really lovely wines from Excel - while the carriage charge was a little steep, the pricces of the wines themselves are not high, and it was more than made up for by the ease of using Excel and the convenience and pleasure of choosing online. I was very pleased with the mixed cases I got.
Although not run by locals their knowledge of Spanish wines really impressed me. On their recommendation I have enjoyed some superb wines I wouldn’t have tried otherwise! We need more sites like this and longer evenings…
Spanish wines have really surprised me. I was always familiar with the Riojas, but there are so many more bodegas producing really modern wines. Excel wines seem to have a great selection of these lesser known (and perhaps higher quality) bodegas. It’s not possible to find most of these names in the UK and if you are looking to try something different it’s certainly worth investigating.
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