How to stock up on global wines for your next virtual happy hour

There was once a time where good wine could only be sold in stuffy bottle shops or at overpriced restaurants. Luckily a new breed of startups is tackling a problem we didn't know we had until now: wine delivered straight to your doorstep.

From natural wines to orange bottles, and quirky varietals to tried-and-true classics, you can travel the world via your glass with a delivery from one of these six online purveyors. Spice up your next virtual happy hour over a flute of bubbly or a big red.

A bottle of red wine being poured into two empty wine glasses — These six sites will deliver top wines to your doorstep © Nicolas Wayne / Getty Images

Winc

Marketed for “the next generation of wine drinkers,” Winc is a direct-to-consumer site with a portfolio that includes vegan, organic and biodynamic bottles. Completing a quiz – which covers your coffee preferences as well as your affinity for citrus, salt and earthy flavors – renders suggestions that better fit your palate, and over time, recommendations are additionally tweaked based on your reviews.

The monthly subscription costs $60 for 4 bottles; skip a charge any month and roll over unused credits. Select the curated bottles or create your own themed box of wines from California, France, Italy, Argentina, Spain and Portugal.

A variety of orange wines — Orange wine is a unique type of wine that lets the juice from freshly pressed grapes sit on the skins after pressing © Courtesy Orange Glou

Orange Glou

Orange wine is made by allowing the juice from white grapes to come in contact with the skins for hours or even weeks after pressing. The resulting wines have a color that ranges from golden to dark orange, with a hard-to-describe funkiness akin to a sour beer that appeals to wine fans craving something different.

Orange Glou is the first and only wine subscription just for skin-contact wines, hand-selected in Slovakia, Italy, France and other regions by natural wine sommelier and consultant Doreen Winkler. Choose a three-bottle or six-bottle monthly subscription or a surprise box priced at $105 and $195 per shipment, respectively; included wines are always a surprise and never boring.

A hand holds a bottle of wine, with several other bottles in a box in the background — MYSA Natural Wine specializes in wines produced using sustainable practices © Courtesy of MYSA Natural Wine

MYSA Natural Wine

Co-founders Holly Berrigan and Niclas Jansson personally source many of the wines for the natural wine marketplace MYSA, seeking out small producers who practice sustainable farming and minimal intervention in the cellar. Wine subscriptions come at three-, six- and 12-bottle levels; each bottle arrives with info on how it was made, tasting notes, serving temperature and pairing ideas. Subscriptions start at $80 for 3 bottles and individual bottles retail $17 to $65. Blog posts, podcasts, videos and reading recommendations on the site help you learn more about natural wines, and MYSA donates 1% of sales towards environmental initiatives.

Vivino

The world’s largest online wine marketplace and most downloaded wine app, Vivino’s online community spans millions of users who share ratings and follow others’ reviews. Wines are organized by region, variety, price and even suggested food pairings, and the staff compiles weekly-updated lists of bestsellers in your state and categories like “smashing Italian whites,” while ratings include insider intel about how a certain year compares to other vintages and bottles that are a good bang for their buck.

Vials of white and red wine — Vinebox's wines come in tiny vials, each holding a glass of wine © Courtesy of Vinebox

Vinebox

A perfect option for a wine tasting group, Vinebox offers shipments of 9 different wines, each one packaged in a vial holding one glass. Vinebox’s sommeliers and experts collect the best wines of the moment, both just-bottled vintages and those that have been cellaring for years. Sign up for the Quarterly Wine Club for $79 every 3 months, or order a one-off box starting at $79; either way, you're sure to find favorites like classic Bordeaux and unexpected finds like fruity reds fermented via the process of carbonic maceration.

Drizly

This popular site for wine, beer, spirits and more partners with local retailers to bring their inventories online. Its availability in any North America market that legally allows alcohol delivery (currently 180) means some users can skirt the pesky restrictions they usually encounter when ordering wine online. Entering a delivery address will populate the site with products available in the area, and orders usually arrive within an hour. Wine is searchable by varietal and region, and trends are tracked by criteria including wallet-friendly offerings under $10. Staff members list their favorites and bottles are rated by other Drizly users on a five-point scale with optional review.

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