The Tasting Room UK, which was founded in 2002, was a wine seller who specialized in both Old and New World wines through a tedious process. They launched their website for specialty wines in the UK near the end of October in 2005.
Tasting Room was located in Bath, in the historic Larkhall village on the outskirts of Georgian Bath and was ran by Will Baber. They were closed on Sundays and Mondays.
Their selection of wines they carry takes a long time to settle on as they love to create meaningful relationships with actual vineyard owners and growers. This process allows them to pass along not just savings but offer exclusive access to smaller, boutique wine grower supplies.
This is what set them apart from the other wine distributors in the UK was their personalized service and unique wine offerings. They would walk around the store with you and help you find the choose the perfect wine. And, their selection was hand-picked and did not play into the politics set by supermarkets and giant wine corporations where quantity and profit shadowed over the quality of the wine.
There was a members club for those wine enthusiasts that loved special events and free in-store tastings. They really wanted to give their clients attention instead of just selling wine to get rid of it.
They also offered gift options so members could get wine gifts in the UK for their family and friends for special occasions. Also, if people wanted to get together as a group and book a wine tasting, it was possible on the website.
For those who did not want to physically go to the store or did not have time to go, you could search their wine inventory from the website. You could sort by price range, grape varietal, and region of the world. Once you had selected your picks and they were in your cart, you could check out online also and have it shipped to you.
There were also special offers you could choose from to save some money on great wines going out of stock.
The regions for wine growing they presented are:
- Beaujolais
- Bordeaux
- Burgundy
- Southern France
- Loire Valley
- Rhone
- Italy
- Spain
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Sparkling Wine
Some of the Southern France wines you could choose from included: Chateau de Valflaunes - Pic St Loup, Chateau Grande Cassagne - Nimes, Chateau Chenaie - Faugeres, Chateau de Bordes - Cotes de Gascogne, and Cheateau de Bovila - Cahors.
Australian wines that they hand-selected to carry included Ceravolo Estate - Adelaide Plains, Viking Wines - Barossa Valley, and O’Leary Wines - Claire Valley.
They also did carry some spirits such as whiskey, brandy, armagnac, and fruit cremes.
The website ran until around the middle of May 2018.
