2018 went by far too quickly for our liking! Dear wine lovers, we would like to thank you very much for following us over the course of the past year. We retrace the key moments of 2018, of all these months during which we did our best to offer you the wines of your dreams.

Initial figures

The volume of our sales and bottles sold has exploded; we therefore accelerated the rhythm of our sales, to keep up with demand. In 2018, no fewer than 43 online auctions were organized on iDealwine. Last year, more than 234,000 bottles were bought by you. 😊

The iDealwine team

The team, which the three founders, Cyrille Jomand, Angélique de Lencquesaing and Lionel Cuenca, have built to help develop iDealwine. The various teams – web, buyers, customer services, marketing, logistics, international – no fewer than 35 wine enthusiasts, who bring their expertise and energy to iDealwine. This dream team is constantly growing and will be joined by some new team members in the next few days.

The network of partner domains is also constantly growing. In 2018, almost 50 new domains joined our network of almost 450 domains. Amongst these, the Corsican domain Giudicelli, the Champagne house Billecart-Salmon, Mas Cal Demoura and Les Vignes Oubliées in the Languedoc, and many more.

Over time, our list of coups de Coeur has also got longer! In 2018, we fell in love with the velvety, complex Jurançons from Camin Larredya, the energetic and vibrant champagnes from Pouillon, refined, powerful Cornas from Auguste Clape, rare, sublime Rasteau from Domain Gourt de Mautens, direct, elegant Marsannays from Sylvain Pataille, and the new star in Sancerre Le Pré Sémelé.

An ever-evolving site

We are always trying to improve our website, to make your experience as fluid as possible. This is even more true for our mobile app, which more and more of you are using.

To make navigating the site simpler, we’ve therefore brought many improvements, starting with the ‘Cote des vins’ page, which gives you price estimates for wines.

To thank you for being part of our ever-expanding community of wine lovers, we have also introduced a ‘refer a friend’ initiative, which in short means that when you persuade one of your loved ones to buy on iDealwine, both you and they receive a €25 gift voucher.

Another novelty on the website is the addition of a shopping basket with a time limit, which is very useful for us in managing our stock and allowing everyone to access the rarest cuvées. The web team isn’t stopping there, and you’ll see that in 2019 there are many more changes to come!

International development, the key to our success

One thing’s for sure, the iDealwine community is global! There are now more than 500,000 wine lovers subscribed to the site. International wine lovers now represent a growing proportion of our buyers, and in certain sales the proportion of lots bought by European, Asian or American customers is over 50%. This is of course thanks to our unique selection of mature wines, as well as first class service which we are tirelessly work on improving 😉

iDealwine events

Private tastings, events such as the Revue du vin de France, Bordeaux Tasting, The Grand Tasting, the Jardins, Jardin and master-classes that we organize at iDealwine. And we’re not only talking about France here! iDealwine also holds events in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Singapore…

The blog

The blog is the best tool for us to keep in contact with you on a daily basis, and in 2018 it made a significant leap, with more and more articles being written and 71,779 readers (both the French and English blog) per month this year. We’re counting on you to bring that up to a million in 2019 😊.

228 Litres: the first bar connected – and vinified – by iDealwine

2018 saw the opening of Pierre Renauld’s wine bar (a former intern who worked on the marketing team for almost a year). Here are a few photos from this future place-to-be in Pigalle.

…now for 2019

Last but not least, time to give you a little overview of the year to come. Among other things, we will be developing our presence on the American market, the navigation menu on the website will be entirely redone and we will be developing our procedures in verifying the authenticity of the wines we sell. That’s not forgetting our magical gift card which will be launched by the end of the week…

We will also be introducing a storage service, which will allow you to safely store your precious bottles.

There’s nothing left for us to say other than a big THANK YOU to you all, and to send you our best wishes for the year ahead.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 😊