Wines for Humanity

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!! What a nightmare. My sister bought a groupon as a gift for me. That gift turned into a nightmare. 20 phone calls to figure out and upsell me on the wines that I didn’t want. I was told I would only get a half a glass of wine out of a 10 bottle wine tasting. «Who wants to come to my wine tasting? Not me either!!!»
This is a scam and nightmare to have to deal with. Below was the final straw with my wine coordinator.
As a reminded please have glasses, pens, and a roll of paper towels out, refrigerate the whites and sparkling, and gratuity, as stated, is not included with tastings (average ranges between $ 125 and $ 175 depending how you feel the service was at the tasting).
RUN RUN RUN. I am going to pay a guy $ 125-​$ 175 to explain to me how a $ 20 bottle of wine is good. I’m no math genius, but something doesn’t add up. Thanks but no thanks WINE FOR HUMANITY.

While I still FULLY stand by my original review I will update my review as the owner keeps calling asking me to delete my review. First things first this review was done in February 2015. Yes the owner did return my message the day of my party (during my scheduled time) to emphatically apologize. While I wholeheartedly accepted his apology that did NOTHING to return my wasted money I spent to purchase the pairings the wine lady suggested, nor the wasted time my friends spent sitting with me at my home thinking we were going to be wine tasting. Instead we just listened to music and ate the pairings sands wine (and me fighting back tears for my FIRST party in YEARS being wasted) To be frank I was p&@$ed and embarrassed. When Anton and I spoke he DID in fact offer me ONE-​TWO extra bottles of wine when I did host my show and said the lady was DONE with his company! And he also apologized profusely. A little too late for my wasted: time and money but definitely a good business decision for future customers! Flash forward to MAY 3 months AFTER my scheduled show I receive a call asking that I take my review down as it was hurting is business, also the woman was no longer with the company. He then said he offered me a case a wine! NO you offered me 1 – 2 extra bottles. While again I appreciate the gesture but THANKS NO THANKS! After some debate I decided against deleting the review as this IS/​WAS in fact my experience with this company. About a week or two later I received a case (12) bottles of wine delivered. Again too little too late! AGAIN the gesture WAS appreciated BUT I still wasted a to. Of money, time I can’t get back, time my friends can’t get back, and the entire birthday event I had for my 30^th birthday was RUINED because of this companies employee. Not to mention she berated me and told me «I should have better integrity» AND essentially DEMANDED and tried to extort money (the $ 40 – 100 «tip» she required) from me to come do her damn job! Integrity is the LAST thing that woman should have spoke on! Flash forward to January 2016 I receive another bottle of wine, holiday card saying HAPPY holidays and AGAIN requesting my review be taken down. To be honest I’m just NOT comfortable doing that! I will however say the owner continues to call/​text me and has sent roughly 13 bottles of wine as a gesture to apologize and continues to reach out in an effort for me to remove my review. I still stand by my initial review, Although this company does benefit a good cause, in good consciousness I would not recommend this company, and the two glasses I drank from the 2 bottles of wine sent were disgusting!

I bought a Living Social deal for this company and due to a positive experience with a DIFFERENT in-​home wine tasting service. This company left me was gravely disappointed. First off, the rep was over an hour late. She kept getting lost and was actually rude on the phone when she couldn’t find her way. If your job is to drive to people’s homes you’ve never been to before, shouldn’t you map it out beforehand?
She was not thoroughly educated on wines and not very informative. She was inflexible regarding the space we set up for her. She was condescending and spoke to everyone like we were children.
Rather than let everyone taste the wines and discuss amongst themselves like the other wine service rep, this one set up silly games and walked around making sure everyone was filling out their wine review sheets. It felt like we were in Kindergarten. Needless to say, it was an awful experience.
The wine wasn’t very good either. Definitely not worth buying.
When I called this company to ask to speak to this woman’s supervisor regarding our negative experience, they stated that the reps were independent. They were not helpful at all. I also sent an email about my experience and never received a reply. There are other companies out there… use those instead. Don’t waste your money with this one. Or like someone else wrote, set up your own and donate as a group to a charity you can verify.

Very disappointed with the whole time-​consuming experience. It’s not easy to coordinate 12 – 16 people over a month in advance (as is required) due to kids’ schedules, work, etc. The planners said they could accommodate me then requested to change and offered dates two months from now. Considering the inconsistencies, I’m not inclined to ask my friends to plan on a date 2 months out when WFH could easily pull the same move again and try to reschedule/​postpone. Good idea, if it had actually come together. I think I’ll buy my own bottles and conduct my own informal wine tasting instead.

Overall the experience was pleasurable. Our wine gentleman for the night was Smith Cornell and he did an excellent job in the coordination of the wine tasting as well as the execution of the wine tasting. I wish there wasn’t a 3 bottle minimum on wine purchasing as I feel guests would have purchased one or two bottles but not three.

We hosted a wine tasting with Wines for Humanity recently. The wine advisors were informative and great. However the wines were terrible. Although we had a houseful of wine drinkers there were several open bottles of the Wines for Humanity left. The wines are awful and not worth drinking. We chose the most popular wines for the tasting and even so those wines were undrinkable. This is a great example of marketing at its finest. Do yourself a favor and find another source for tasting, and if you are in a charitable mood then donate to St. Vincent dePaul! Truly a disappointment. If this review does not convince you then taste the wine before signing up. Remember this is a ‘for profit’ corporation with the come on of giving to families living in poverty.

Wine Tasting with great friends Jennifer Daggy, Courtney Jane, Kacie, Angie, Jeremy, Christie, Dave, Sal, Chris & Tony.
BIG Thank you to Erin from Wines for Humanity In Home Wine Tastings. Great night!!!

Last Sunday, my friend decided to have a gals’ wine tasting event at her place and a man from Wines for Humanity hosted the tasting.
The six wines we tasted were quite yummy and the price points were varied nicely. Also, the host offered some recipes we could cook if we decided to pair any of the wines with a meal. He entertained us for almost two hours, and boy, did we giggle! Another perk?!? The host was very informative during the tasting, so I felt as if there was some learning going on!
What a great way to spend some time with friends in the comfort of your own home; and most importantly, what a great way to donate some money to a local (Chicago) organization. A portion of each bottle of wine purchased was donated to a Chicago organization that helps families pay their rent/​mortgage if they are having financial difficulties. Yummy wine and helping others who are struggling in Chi-​town? Sign me up!