Not only do our wineries promote their wines on WineQ — many of them are also our most enthusiastic members! Take this blog post about WineQ by Jeff Stai of Twisted Oak Winery, for example.

One of the wines I received is especially interesting to me: the Smith and Wooton 2004 Tanner Brothers Vineyard Syrah. Why? Well, Twisted Oak also has a 2004 Tanner Vineyards Syrah. (Yes, it is the same vineyard - though we are at a loss to understand how S&W could diss sister Judy Tanner Block….) The Tanner Vineyard is right across the highway from Twisted Oak, and I am looking forward to trying the two wines side by side.

And that’s the cool thing about WineQ, because you can do the same thing! You too can build a queue with wines from the same varietal, or even the same vineyard. In fact, we could have a sort of mini Wine Blogging Wednesday (Wine Queuing Wednesday?) to taste off these two wines, if there was enough interest.

Wine Queuing Wednesdays? Sounds like pure genius to me! El Jefe has definitely tapped into one of the greatest benefits of WineQ: The ability to create your own wine club by choosing the wines you want sent to you. On top of that, the wines are shipped free, so there’s no difference in cost compared to shopping at your local wine store, except it comes straight to your doorstep. Plus you can chat with other members about which WineQ wines to try, which many of our members did in the comments on this very same post.

And one of those members happens to be another of WineQ’s winery, Elsbeth of Escafeld Vineyards. Escafeld, having recently featured WineQ on their Vineyard Diary blog, and also having touted us as the most customizable wine club on Earth at Vagablond.com, has been one of our most vocal supporters. Thanks so much for your support, Elsbeth.

Thanks also to Winehiker Russ and Dr. Debs, our other members that participated in Twisted Oak’s lively discussion of WineQ — and thanks in advance to a future member, Wannabe Wino Megan.

We’ve recently received a few questions from members regarding how to keep track of the wines in their queue, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to show off the super-snazzy WineQ console.

Unfortunately, we aren’t yet able to display the console on our blog, so I’ll post a screenshot here for you to use a reference until you can get back to the wines and start playing with it.

The console is the horizontal box below the tabs that keeps track of how many wines are in your queue, how many are in your shopping cart, your current shipping state and then our contact number.

The number for your queue will update automatically (using Ajax technology) and flash yellow whenever you add a wine to your queue. Same with the shopping cart.

Be sure to check it out in action (you don’t need an account) — it will definitely awe, amaze and inspire.

01/17/2007 Update: We have reduced our membership fee to $4.95 per month, for a limited time during our beta release period, to make it even easier to try out WineQ.

From a visitor to our web site this morning:

Love the design of the website, very clean. Great job.

I am actually a little confused as to why I need to pay 9.95 per month to be a member since I will need to pay for each bottle I purchase. Perhaps you should clarify this.

This question, while covered briefly in our FAQ, may occur to other visitors. So here is a reprint of the reply we sent him:

Thanks for writing. I’m glad you’re enjoying the design of our web site!

Regarding the $9.95 membership fee, this provides you with free shipping on orders of $35 or more. It also provides you with $10.00 overnight shipping and $5.00 2-to-3-day shipping (although we reserve the right to adjust these expedited shipping fees in the future, if necessary).

Traditionally, the charges for shipping wine are outrageously high, and one of the core benefits of our service is the very affordable (often free) shipping that our members receive.

Normally on the internet, you cannot buy wine and pay less than $9.95 per order for shipping. Often it is more like $20.00 per order, representing as much as a 30% markup on the cost of the wine you buy. Free shipping for wine normally only comes only with orders of $120 or more (often a 6-bottle minimum). And overnight shipping can cost as much as $40 per order.

So, with all this in mind, many of our members find that the $9.95 monthly fee is a bargain, when you consider what we charge (or don’t charge) for shipping, and what normal wine retailers charge. Essentially, your monthly membership fee gives you the ability to receive shipping at (or sometimes below) our own cost.

Does this answer your question?

His reply: “Yes it does. Thank you for your answer.”

For additional information in this vein, please see our FAQ.