Direct wine sales: The Traveling Vineyard

I've never joined a wine club, though I have acquired lots of wine from wineries over the years. Lately, of course, it comes FedEx. I read that the most successful direct sales company in the US is the parent company of The Traveling Vineyard, an Amway like organization that conducts home wine tastings. I'm curious if anybody has tasted their wines or knows anything about them.

[Robin Garr]

... an Amway like organization that conducts home wine tastings. ...

I am not at all familiar with The Traveling Vineyard, but this description does not inspire confidence, to say the least. Other companies have followed a similar model, and generally have achieved a pretty bad reputation for high-pressure selling of overpriced bulk wines prettied up with imaginary labels.

I am not at all familiar with The Traveling Vineyard, but this description does not inspire confidence, to say the least. Other companies have followed a similar model, and generally have achieved a pretty bad reputation for high-pressure selling of overpriced bulk wines prettied up with imaginary labels.

Not other companies, the same company! Apparently The Traveling Vineyard is a division of ......Geerlings & Wade ! G&W does Amway/Tupperware. I wonder how they get away with it, a quick Google of them makes it sound to me that they might be skirting some ABC laws.

I have no idea if this company would have been around this long but I was subjected to wine at a Tupperware-party-like in the early 80's. In that one experience, I found the other's skepticism here justified. The wine was poor, the labels unknown, and the values very poor. But I think that combination probably goes with the business model whatever the product. Whether it's Pampered Chef cooking gear, Tupperware, or wine, the freebies offered to the hosts in mind my don't justify subjecting acquaintances to that kind of hard sell. I put it in the category of the kind of thing friends shouldn't do to friends.

This board has had posts from Travelling Vineyard people in the past. They are encouraged to title themselves 'Independent Wine Consultants' and a look at the TV website shows the company, presumably to comply with US laws, maintains a distance between them in that the 'consultants' don't actually sell wine.

Wine listed on the TV site seem never to have scored less them 90 points, and points seem to be quoted as a major selling point by TV 'consultants', but I get the feeling that TV awarded the points themselves.

I also get the feeling that TV 'consultant's have to make a big financial commitement and the company are happy to encourage those who know nothing about wine to become one.