Corporate Wines

I bought a few bottles of wine a few years ago and other than taking waaaaay too long to get it, the price was right. I then ordered brandy and asked to ship it (this was last fall). First I was not getting replies to emails, then I was told they cannot ship because it was too cold — it was around 45 outside and even ground shipping takes 24 hours due to distance. I said they can ship on my own risk. there is no risk since it is hard liquor. They gave me another excuse, which made me believe they did not have the brandy and just were getting $$ to then go and try to get it. Go somewhere else.

I was visiting family outside of Boston when we ran out of wine. I was tasked with finding some and decided to give this place a whirl. I figured with a name like Corporate Wines, they would either suck or be pretty cool. Luckily, I seem to have found a gem.
Corporate Wines seems to specialize in some of the more «out of the way» wines that are high in drinkability and reasonable in cost. Their case discount was awesome, especially since I was buying for family and didn’t want to spend a boatload. My sales guy (Bob) had a real zest for his job — he pointed me in the direction of some excellent wines I would not otherwise thought of…
The place is super low frills — just lots of wine. If you want attitude, go somewhere else. If you want some kick-​ass recommendations for vino, go here — especially when Bob is working.
It’s a bummer about people’s mail order snafus but the in-​store experience was just great. A fun experience.

The bare-​minimum wine shop in Woburn is OK, but I wouldn’t drive out of the way for it (actually haven’t been there in several years). Greatly prefer Berman’s in Lexington (particularly for Italian wines) or Gordon’s main shop in Waltham for their broad selection, in-​depth wine knowledge and great customer service. Or even Waltham’s Costco (this location has the 2^nd largest sales for what is the largest US wine retailer!), where you can find many outstanding wines for 25% off (occasionally even 50% off) any other shop in Boston (although obviously the fine wine selection isn’t huge and is biased towards big name, big volume wineries like Beaucastel, Opus One, and Ducru).
The reason this place rates only 1 star is because of their completely pathetic Internet business. They claim to have an amazing number of very hard to find wines at bargain prices. In reality, they never seem to have them, and their responsiveness to phone calls or e-​mails is the worst I’ve ever seen.
If you use
to search for wines, the first thing you should do is block Corporate Wines from showing up in searches. They are one of only two retailers in the US that I’ve been forced to block.
Slainte!

You can get some smoking deals in the store (watch their promotions), but it is very no frills and you have to know your stuff (you can over pay too). No experience with the mail order service.

I used to love this place. I’ve purchased somewhere around 4 – 6 cases of wine from here… maybe more. But when I went there over the weekend, it was a completely different place! A dead zone. Did something die in here? The owner was rude and distant, (in fact, I barely recognized him he looked so different, I thought he might be the owner’s brother.) the sales person seemed very preoccupied, and… they wouldn’t honor a credit card discount because we had a gift certificate from Corporate Wines (which was paid for with a credit card. WTH?). It was a shame because we encouraged out of towners to gift us with a certificate here, and we have recommended CW to friends in the past. Had we known of these shenanigans, and the drastic decline in this place, we would have told the gifters to send a check.
I don’t like speaking ill, but I have to tell it like I experienced it; and if this saves anyone the hassle we went through (I am leaving out a lot of the story: CW: «Well, how do we know how this was paid for?» Us: (Holding the gift cert sent to us from CW) «Well, whose writing is this?» Ugh! It was miserable!), along with the ultra sh! tty customer service (How about an, «I’m sorry this wasn’t made clear»? Nothing. My husband and I have never been treated so badly. And yeah, it was a wedding gift.), then it’s worth it.
So just to be clear (because they are not): If you get a gift certificate from Corporate Wines, you will pay full price on everything. Period. No case discounts, no credit card discounts, no cash discounts. Nothing. And without that, their prices aren’t competitive.
We will never return to Corporate Wines and no longer recommend them. I’d worry about purchasing futures from them because who can say if they will be around when it’s time to collect one’s purchase.
I’m sorry I had to write this.