Amazon.com opens online wine shop

Amazon.com on Thursday launched a dedicated wine marketplace on its website. The online wine shop is currently in beta, with thousands of labels searchable by type (red, white, etc.), grape varietal, winery, tasting notes (blackberry, vanilla, oak ... ), professional rating, vintage, ABV (alcohol by volume) or price.

So far, customers in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and the District of Columbia (with more states to be added) can ship up to six bottles for $9.99.

The search option includes wines offered from external sites -- which means access to a selection of reds, for example, that numbers more than 23,000 labels, including 5,299 Cabernet Sauvignons and 3,206 Pinot Noirs (however, if you search by rating, only one among those 23,568 reds has a score of 94 or higher and only 13 have a score of more than 92).

Amazon’s own marketplace carries more than 1,000 U.S. labels, “including family-owned and operated Roadhouse Winery in Sonoma County that only produces 3,000 cases a year of their hand-crafted Pinot Noir as well as the vast 650-acre Flora Springs Winery and Vineyards in the heart of Napa Valley,� according to Amazon.com’s release.

Still planning to beef up its site, the company says wineries interested in selling on Amazon Wine can go to go.amazonservices.com/wine.

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