I like wine, and buy a lot of it at many of the online stores that exist here in Japan. Delivery means you don’t need to lug all those bottles around, and you get to take your time shopping. Mixed cases and wine sets also make shopping online big fun.
First let me say that there are hundreds of online wine shops here in Japan, but only a few that offer shopping in English. The Japanese sites tend to have a strong French or otherwise European focus, while the others (typically bi-lingual English and Japanese) reflect the tastes or interests of their (often foreign) owners. All offer the same basic shopping experience–browse wines, add to cart, checkout, wait a few days and then greet the wine at the door–but are distinguished from one another in the following specific areas:
- Website user experience. Simply put, some handle this critical very well and others, well, don’t. Location of and access to the shopping cart, search functions, information architecture, product images (labels cs. bottles, etc.) and site responsiveness all culminate in a user experience that is either positive (and brings customers back) or is not.
- Shipping. On many sites you can pay a little extra for refrigerated shipping, or you will be required to if ordering in the middle of Japan’s oppressively hot and muggy Summer. Premium wines and older vintages should be shipped refrigerated in Summer whenever possible.
- Discounts and Incentives. Pay close attention to these when visiting or ordering from a site for the firs time. Most sites with offer free shipping for orders above a certain level, order level- and volume-discounts, discounts on first-time orders, or some combination of these. Read the fine print (or massive banners, as the case may be) to see what savings are available.
- Mixed Cases and Wine Sets. Ordering can be a great way to save time and money while also getting a sense for the quality of both the wine on offer and the company itself. The better wine shops offer a variety of mixed cases to suit various tastes and budgets.
That said, here are some of the wine shops I buy from, with notes on the wines, user experience, etc.
Sites with full e-commerce functionality:
Enoteca
http://www.enoteca.co.jp/en/
This well-known wine shop has brick-and-mortar stores all over Japan and a highly-trafficked online store. They recently launched an English version of their online store which more or less mirrors the Japanese site. The English is rough and misspellings abound, lending a “right here in Japan” feel to the online shopping experience. They have a very wide selection of wines and offer missed cases (“assort sets”) from 9,400 yen.
Le Petit Tonneau Wine
http://www.petitonneau-wine.com
This online wine shop was recently launched by local restaurateur Le Petit Tonneau (www.petitonneau.com) and specializes in wines from the South of France, primarily Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence and the Southwest. While French wines from better known regions such as Burgundy and Bordeaux are well-known here and readily available, Languedoc-Roussillon has been under represented online until now.
The number of wines available on this site is small but growing, and all have been hand-picked for their exceptional food pairing quality and are also served in Le Petit Tonneau’s three Tokyo locations. You’ll also find recipes and food pairing recommendations by well-known “Iron Chef” winner Philippe Batton.
ORCA International
http://www.orca-international.com/en/
“Japan’s Pacific Northwest Wine Leader” specializes in wines from Oregon and Washington state, regions that are increasingly being recognized for creating wines of exceptional structure and finesse. This site offers 100% per-page toggling of English and Japanese content (even among search results) and rich cross-linking of related content. The site offers rich search functions for their wines as well as locations throughout Japan at which they are served or sold. ORCA International also conducts a variety of wine tastings, dinners and other events each month, with details and sign-up available online.
UPDATE: The ORCA site has added a new Members function that give registered website users access to discounts and special offers on wine.
The Vine
http://www.thevineltd.com/
Importers of Rhone Valley wines and “other iconoclastic wines from around the world.” Exceptional selection of premium appellations such as Condrieu, Gigondas, Cote Rotie, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and more. These wines are knock-your-socks-off good.
UPDATE (6/16/2009): The Vine has now added full online shopping capabilities and three payment methods.
Pieroth
http://www.pieroth.jp/en/
Long established German wine merchant Pieroth established Pieroth Japan in 1974 and has been growing here ever since. Their online store provides English speakers in Japan with a comfortable and functional online shopping experience and access to an extensive selection of wines from around the world with a focus on Europe.
iWine
http://en.iwine.jp/
iWine is a recent entrant to the online wine scene here in Japan and is marketing itself heavily to the foreign community. The site sports a high-contrast, shiny UI done mostly in black and pink, and is ostensibly bi-lingual, by which I mean you still see a lot of Japanese in the English side.
The site is still quite rough around the edges, with an abundance of “placeholder” bottle images and left navi links that produce a hapless “sorry, no wines” message when clicked. There are also many ghost pages where it seems the content has either gone missing or never existed. Lots of things you would expect to find in a BETA website still remain, unfortunately, in the iWine site. Inexplicable, this, considering how much effort and money they are putting into marketing it.
Nonetheless, the site has powerful backing and benefits from the involvement of some seasoned industry veterans. It will be interesting to see what they do with it going forward.
Sites with limited or no e-commerce functionality:
Hotei
http://www.hoteiwines.com/
Popular and highly-regarded selection of mostly Californian wines available for order via fax or email from this simple-looking, no-frills website.
Village Cellars
http://www.village-cellars.co.jp/
Village Cellars specializes in great wines from the Southern hemisphere, particularly Australia and New Zealand. Their site offers a simple add-to-list-then-fax ordering function in a somewhat cluttered, all-bilingual website.
Japanese-only sites:
YNSトウキョー (Wines Tokyo)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/ynstokyo/
Like most Rakuten wine shops, this one suffers from that typical Japanese e-commerce mentality which assumes that the more text, images, color you cram into a web page the more product you’re likely to sell. I generally avoid these shops as they’re painful to look at often offer little surprises like 0 stock on half of their products and a labyrinthine shoppiong and checkout experience. A perfect example of the kinds of problems you’re bound to invite when you give sellers direct access to their website.
Anyway, “Y’ns” (”Wines,” get it? Clever.) is a visually caconophic Rakuten site like so many others, but the difference is the wine. Most of what they sell they actually have in stock, and the quality is exceptional. I’ve ordered twice now and was impressed with everthing I got, from this very tasty (and cheap!) California Zinfandel to this 1999 Cote du Rhone to Portuguese wines from Dao. All competitively-priced and obviously selected by someone with high standards for wine. Recommended!
eX Wines
http://www.exwine.net/
This is a vast, festive-looking site that succeeds in generating interest in what lurks beneath. In terms of design, imagine what a wine shop might look like if the animators at Pixar had developed it and you’ll get the idea. They pack a LOT of content and navigational elements into a small space and somehow make it all work. The only disappointing pages are the checkout screens, which is surprising and unfortunate. Nonetheless, they have an impressive selection of wines and a veritable army of mixed cases. Still working through my first order from them at the time of this writing but so far the reviews are good!
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