Naked Wines Review 2025: The Truth About Being an ‘Angel’

Ever wished you could support small winemakers while scoring premium wines at insider prices? That’s exactly what Naked Wines promises.

Think of it as Kickstarter meets your local wine club – but with a twist. Instead of just buying wine, you become an “Angel” investor, putting some money into your account monthly to unlock exclusive access to independent winemakers’ craft wines at up to 60% off retail.

But is it really worth your time and money?

As someone who’s navigated the ins and outs of this unique wine subscription service, I’ll cut through the marketing buzz to help you decide if Naked Wines deserves a spot in your monthly budget.

This review dives deep into everything except individual wine ratings (because let’s face it, taste is personal) – we’re talking business model, customer experience, and whether those promised savings actually add up.

Become A Naked Wines "Angel" TodayWith $100 off your first wine order through this link

How Naked Wines Works

Naked Wines isn’t like your traditional wine club. Sign up and you’ll earn “Angel” status and form part of a collective regularly depositing money to be invested in exclusive winegrowing projects. Sound interesting? Let’s explore it a little further.

The Angel Membership System

At its core, Naked Wines operates on a unique “Angel” membership model. As an Angel, you deposit a pre-set amount monthly into your Naked Wines account, set at $40 by default but adjustable to any value between $20 and $100 per month.

This isn’t a traditional subscription where wine automatically ships each month – instead, think of it as a savings account exclusively for wine purchases.

Becoming an “Angel” gets you access to wine prices that are at least 30% off their standard marketplace price, as well as invites to winemaker tastings and events as long as you maintain your “Angel” status.

Since Naked Wines use your Angel contributions to exclusively fund individual winemaker projects, they are commonly the sole distributor of any wines that come out of those projects. That means you often can’t buy the wines available on Naked Wines elsewhere, even from the winemaker themselves.

Monthly Credits and Commitment

Your monthly deposit sits in your Naked Wines account as credit, and these credits never expire – they just roll over month after month.

While you do need to keep making those monthly deposits to stay an “Angel,” you’re not locked in – you can hit pause or walk away whenever you want. Any credits on your account will remain available to spend, although you can’t withdraw in cash.

Ordering Flexibility

Unlike traditional wine clubs, Naked Wines operates with more flexibility. You can place orders whenever you like, as there’s no requirement for monthly shipments.

While there are minimum order requirements for shipping, you choose the quantity that works for you. The selection is open-ended too – you can pick any combination of wines from their available inventory rather than receiving pre-selected cases.

As for your credits, they can be used however you prefer. Some members spend them monthly, while others let them accumulate for larger orders.

Finding Your Perfect Wines

Naked Wines offers multiple ways to find wines that will suit your palate:

Browse by Category

• Wine Type: Reds, whites, sparkling, and more
• Style Profile: From bold reds to crisp whites
• Origin: Australian and international selections
• Grape Variety: All major varietals covered
• Winemaker: 65+ exclusive Naked Wines winemakers.
• Price Range: $9.99 to $70+

Smart Discovery Tools

• Personalized Wine Quiz: Get matched with wines that suit your palate
• Winemaker Collections: Explore complete ranges from favorite producers
• Angel Ratings: See what other members love
• Taste Profile Matching: Find wines similar to your favorites

The shop makes it easy to explore new wines while keeping track of your favorites through a personal rating system and reorder options. You can build your own case or choose from some of their pre-selected cases.

Your “Angel” status unlocks exclusive pricing on all wines, typically 40-60% below retail, but you’ll need to maintain your monthly deposits to keep these benefits active.

Ordering and Delivery

Each order needs to contain a minimum of 6 wines, with bottles starting from $9.99 up to $70+.

Most bottles are between $20 – $30 with the Angel discount, so it might take you a few months to build up enough credits for a 6-pack if you’re only loading $40 each month.

Shipping costs are a flat rate based on your postcode, ranging from $6.99 up to $14.90. The closer you are to major metro areas, the more likely you are to be on the lower range of those delivery fees (payable by Angels and normal members alike).

Deliveries are scheduled to take between 4 – 7 days but this can be highly dependent on the courier / time of year. I’ve received boxes near Christmas before and it took an extra week to arrive.

Wine Variety

Whilst having access to exclusive wines is a huge positive of being a Naked Wines “Angel”, it does come with a downside because Naked Wines only stock wines that they’ve funded through the Angel scheme.

At the time of writing, that’s 246 different wines available. Whilst that feels like a huge range, it’s more interesting to see the breakdown:

• Red – 197 (80%)
• White – 32 (13%)
• Sparkling – 11 (4.5%)
• Rose – 4 (1.6%)
• Dessert & Fortified – 2 (0.9%)

There’s clearly a huge focus on producing different varieties of red wines within the Naked Wines portfolio.

If you’re not into drinking reds though, you’re likely to find the range a bit limiting. For example, there are just 4 Rieslings and no Gewürztraminers. This is most likely a side effect of focusing on Australian-grown wines.

Wine Rotation

In between receiving my crate of wine and writing this review, half of my wines stopped being promoted on their main directory of wines. Whilst I could still order more through my wine history, it’s important to recognise that many of the wines produced for Naked Wines are limited releases. Popular wines can sell out quickly!

That means Naked Wines are regularly rotating out their wines as new releases are bottled. That’s pretty exciting, as you’ll always be able to find new wines to try (especially if you’re a fan of Reds).

Excellent Wine Discovery Pages

I personally find choosing wines incredibly difficult. Descriptions are often vague and meaningless, and I find little correlation between price and enjoyment.

That’s why it’s so important to have a little help when trying to explore new wines. Naked Wines do a fantastic job of helping with this, providing individual pages for each wine that includes:

• Detailes about the wine (e.g best before, serving advice, food matches)
• Angel ratings & recommendations
• Angel comments, and responses from the winemakers themselves.
• A background about the winemaker (including podcasts)
• A “Wine Profile”

I need to go into a bit more detail about the ‘wine profile’ because I think it’s a really great way of visualising how the wine is going to taste. It’s also the mechanism Naked Wines use to match you with wines that suit your own palate.

Here’s an example of what I see as an Angel who loves a variety of different white wines. This is on a “Crisp White” and fits nicely into my personal wine profile.

Naked Wines Pricing

The most important thing to understand about Naked Wines’ pricing is that there are two distinct price tiers: regular retail prices and “Angel” member prices.

Becoming an Angel simply means committing to depositing at least $20 a month into your account, which you can cancel at any time. That means there’s no point ordering wines without being an Angel.

Since all of Naked Wines bottles are exclusive to their wine club, it’s really hard to objectively judge whether Naked Wines provide good value.

It’s clear to me, however, that you certainly aren’t paying more than equivalent wines you can get in your local bottle-o. For similar (or lower) prices, Naked Wines is giving you access to interesting and exclusive wines that you can’t get anywhere else.

Marketplace Pricing

Wine pricing is anchored by their “marketplace” price, which is calculated based on similar quality wines found at liquor stores across Australia, such as Liquorland and First Choice Liquor.

Whilst the market price can definitely be manipulated, there is incredible transparency on which wines are being used to benchmark pricing. If you buy a wine and disagree with the pricing, you can request a credit to be added to your account and they might even adjust their benchmark pricing based on your feedback.

Wine Genie

Naked Wines do offer an additional regular subscription service, where they’ll send you curated boxes every 1,2, or 3 months. It’s an offering that competes with most of the other “wine clubs” running in Australia.

Wine Genie allows you to select how much you want to spend per bottle, the mix of red/white wines, and how many bottles you’d like in each case. Once subscribed, you’ll keep receiving curated crates of wine at regular intervals until you actively unsubscribe, delay, or skip a crate.

Wine Genie is curated based on your own taste profile – initially generated from a short quiz – that’s constantly adjusted based on feedback you provide about each wine you drink.

Welcome Discount

Naked Wines offer a generous welcome discount, subject to change at any time. You can find the current discount by clicking the button below.

Become A Naked Wines "Angel" TodayWith $100 off your first wine order through this link

My Naked Wines Experience

I’m a big white wine lover, so of course I used my Angel membership to get myself a pack of 12 whites, recommended for me after taking the wine quiz.

As I’ve already mentioned, shipping was a bit delayed as it got caught in the festive shipping chaos. However, I did receive regular updates from Aramex and they were able to leave the case securely in the lobby of my apartment building.

Initial impressions of the box were that it’s smartly designed. I do enjoy the personality shown with the catchphrase “Wine tastes better Naked” as they lean into their quirky name.

Inside the box it was packaged fairly lightly, with just cardboard inserts protecting the bottles from each other. It’s economical but I probably wouldn’t ship very expensive wines this way.

The other thing I noticed was the complete absence of any additional materials such as leaflets, wine guides, or introductory information. Everything you need is on the website, so I don’t feel like this take away from the Naked Wines experience but it means you might want to print out the website pages separately.

Where’s The White Variety?

My box arrived with a selection of whites that lacked a lot of the variety I’ve seen from other services. I’ve already discussed the disparity between the amount of Reds vs Whites available on Naked Wines, and my box is a perfect encapsulation of that limitation.

Of the 12 wines I received:

• 4 were Sauvignon Blanc (1/3rd of the wine)
• 2 were Pinot Grigio
• 2 were Chardonnay
• 2 were ‘Sparkling’ wines

The box was rounded out by a Moscato and a Rose.

This lack of variety was compounded by the limited number of winemakers making white wines as part of Naked Wines projects. Of the 12 wines I received:

• 2 were by Rob Paulazzo
• 3 were by Jen Pfeiffer
• 2 were by ‘Boy Meets Girl’

Considering the incredible variety of white wines available across Australia’s wine regions, I found this slightly disappointing.

Are They Good Wines?

I’m no wine expert, and would never claim to be one. When the conversation turns to naming different exotic fruits that can be vaguely tasted, I’m pretty much lost immediately.

All I care about is finding delicious, easy drinking wines.

That’s easily what I found with the selection shipped by Naked Wines. Enjoyable wines that delivered on their promised flavour profiles.

My favourites were the BVO Bloem Moscato, and the Boy Meets Girl Pinot Grigio. Interestingly, the winemakers behind Boy Meets Girl (Adrian and Rebecca Santolin) were the first Naked winemakers when the service started in 2012.

One part of the experience I thoroughly enjoyed was reading about the wines, the winemakers, and comments from other Angels whilst drinking the wine itself. Having that community aspect was a really fun part of the Naked Wines experience.

Additional Membership Benefits

The core membership benefit associated with Naked Wines is gaining access to exclusive wines that come from projects financed by Angel contributions.

Becoming an Angel gets you access to a few more cool features though:

• Free Wine – Every month you buy 12 wines, you’ll get an additional ‘gift’ bottle.
• Special Events & Tastings – Angel membership gets you access to exclusive events held with Naked Wines winemakers, at an additional fee to attend.
• Access to Regular Offers – During my time as a member, Naked Wines have run multiple special offers that lower the ’Angel’ price even further so your credits can buy more wine than normal.
• Feedback Direct to the Winemaker – Winemakers regularly check the community pages for their wines and respond to any feedback. It’s a great way to connect directly with the source of your wine!
• Community Access – Last but not least, Naked Wines have a ‘Groups’ feature where you can chat with fellow Angels and get updates on various wine projects. There’s even a ‘Wine Dogs’ group that I highly recommend (although it’s not as active as I’d want).

Don’t Like It, Don’t Pay For It

I wanted to test out their “don’t like it, don’t pay for it” guarantee and simply clicked “this wine tasted funny” within my account and before I had a chance to register anything, I had a full refund back as credits into my account.

Of course, I’m sure if you abused this system you’d find your requests wouldn’t be as smooth. However, I think it’s fantastic that if you don’t enjoy a wine for whatever reason, you’re able to get a credit refund for that bottle.

It’s a policy that really shows a commitment to delivering high quality wines.

Final Verdict

After thoroughly testing Naked Wines’ Angel membership, I’ve found it offers a unique blend of value and experience that sets it apart from traditional wine clubs.

Naked Wines offers a solid subscription experience with some unique advantages – particularly the community aspect and direct winemaker connection. I found that the overall service delivers good value, especially for red wine lovers. The flexible credit system and satisfaction guarantee make it a low-risk way to explore new wines.

The service isn’t perfect – the limited white wine selection and occasional availability issues are notable drawbacks. However, the combination of competitive pricing, quality assurance, and unique community features makes Naked Wines a worthwhile choice for wine enthusiasts looking to support independent winemakers while discovering new favorites.

Overall Value Proposition

The Angel membership delivers on its core promise of providing exclusive wines at competitive prices. While it’s difficult to make direct price comparisons since these wines aren’t sold elsewhere, the quality-to-price ratio feels fair, especially when considering the direct connection to independent winemakers. The “don’t like it, don’t pay for it” guarantee adds significant value by removing the risk of being stuck with wines you don’t enjoy.

Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Join Naked Wines

Naked Wines is ideal for:

• Red wine enthusiasts who want to explore different styles and makers
• Wine drinkers who enjoy connecting with winemakers and learning about their craft
• People who prefer flexibility in their wine deliveries rather than fixed monthly shipments
• Those who can commit to a monthly deposit of at least $20-$40
• Social wine drinkers who enjoy sharing their experiences in a community

However, it might not be the best fit for:

• White wine specialists seeking extensive variety
• Those who prefer well-known commercial brands
• Buyers wanting immediate delivery of specific wines (due to limited stock issues)
• People in remote areas with high shipping costs

Naked Wines vs Other Australian Wine Clubs

Naked Wines operates in a competitive Australian wine subscription market alongside several notable alternatives:

• Vinomofo – Another major online wine retailer offering both subscription boxes and individual purchases, known for their “black market” deals and curated selections
• Good Pair Days – Focuses on personalized wine matching and education, with monthly subscriptions tailored to individual taste profiles – Read our Good Pair Days review.
• Wine Selectors – A more traditional wine club backed by a panel of experts, offering regional and varietal selections – Read our Wine Selectors review.

What sets Naked Wines apart is their unique Angel investment model and direct connection to winemakers. While competitors might offer similar prices or selection sizes, none provide the same level of transparency about where your money goes or the same direct engagement with winemakers.

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Become A Naked Wines "Angel" TodayWith $100 off your first wine order through this link

Frequently Asked Questions