Naked wines – Part 4

Following the comment and accusations received by Rowan, the big boss of Naked Wines, I thought of writing down the facts. This is the comment posted by Rowan “Dear Andrea If you are going to take cheap shots as your competition, you should get your facts straight - You are selling your Pinot Grigio for £9 (on “special offer” to £7.64) – we are selling ours for £5.49. Not £7.99 as you claim - You are claiming that we asked our producer to make another PG for us...complete rubbish. I told you at the time. Maybe you are not interested in facts if they spoil your story? - I offered to host a tasting where a group of customers could compare your £9 PG with our £5.49 PG...no answer from you. I wonder why? I know you are trying to build your business, but you should really stick to the truth If you want to take this further, let’s have that tasting...put your money where your mouth is. Rowan ps if you have any doubts about our winemakers, why not ask our customers, as they help us choose them. On our site you can chat to the winemaker and other customers, so see for yourself”.

Before doing so, for the benefits of Rowan, I would like to tell him that not only I am Italian but I grow up in a wine making family and started sipping wine from my grand dad’s glass when I was 2. Everything started when I saw a Pinot Grigio from Abruzzi, had IGT Abruzzo on the label, sold as Pinot Grigio delle Venezie for a discounted price of £5.99 instead of of £7.99 and saying amongst the other information on the advert banner that it was the” best PG amongst 52 they had tasted ranging up to £12” and ”if you have drunk a gorgeous Pinot Grigio, on holiday in Veneto, and wondered where you can get that quality here in the UK...look no further!” which was not true because the wine was from grapes grown in Abruzzo. I simply raised the question on my blog and I immediately received a call from someone at Naked Wines asking me why I had written the post and when I explained the reason, he initially did not know the difference between a PG from Abruzzo and one from Veneto, when I insisted that there was a big, huge difference, and they could not sell a PG from Abruzzo as one from Veneto, he said that could have been a mistake. In the same occasion I was also threatened of legal actions and for that reason, I had to take a screen shot of the PG in question, because they could have changed it and I needed a proof.

Then following the comments received on my post, luckily someone agrees with me about Naked Wines, I discovered that the same producer was now also making a PG delle Venezie sold at a discounted price, as usual, of £7.99 and the description had exactly the same words than the Pinot Grigio from Abruzzi, chosen amongst 52 PG, holiday in Veneto etc... here explained my latest post. Responding to Rowan’s comments, I have already said that I am happy to put my money where my mouth is, so bring it on, is the producer of the PG from Abruzzi the same than the one from Veneto? Have you used the same description for both wines, if you cannot remember it, I still have the screen shot of the PG from Abruzzi. Have you got the PG from Veneto following my first post? Because the answers to all these questions are yes, you can only agree with my post.

Also the wines Naked Wines sells, at least Italians, are not available in Italy, are made for the UK market and your producers appears to be bottlers. Our producers, on the other side, not only they sell the same wines in Italy, but are also vine growers and are in many Italian wine guides, yours are not. You also mention to me that I could talk to you winemakers, what is the point, they would tell me exactly the same that you just told me but I am Italian and I know my stuff. You can’t talk to mine, unfortunately, because they don’t speak English, they are farmers and don’t have any PR person. Lastly, your customers, why don’t you look at their rating of your wines, one of your customers wrote for the PG from Abruzzi that it was worth the price he paid, £5.99, but if he had to pay what you say the real price is, he would have found better wines in supermarkets. I think this post should make the facts straight.