Tock's New Wine Shop Feature Delivers Exclusive Bottles To Your Door

Sometimes we taste a wine so intriguing it marks the time, place, and circumstance in our memories. These wines are difficult to find and tend to be sold exclusively by the vintners that harvested, blended, and aged them to perfection in vineyards in the U.S. and around the world. In the (presumed) absence of a fully staffed private jet, how will you have these indelible wine-tasting experiences?

Tock, an online reservation platform, just added a new feature for wine lovers. The Tock Wine Shop connects consumers directly to participating wineries. Tock's CEO and founder, Nick Kokonas, says the app is the newest innovation in an outdated wine distribution system that inflates consumer costs. According to Yahoo, Kokanos believes "The three-tier system is antiquated, penalizes the winery, drives up costs, and limits consumer choice." 

Founded in 2014 when Kokonas partnered with Google alum Brian Fitzpatrick, Tock began as an online reservation system created to rival OpenTable. It had exclusive features, allowing restaurants to showcase their unique offerings, such as cookbooks and curated experiences like tasting tables and private dining (via The Alinea Group). In 2021, Squarespace acquired Tock for more than $400 million, according to Restaurant Hospitality.

The debut of the Tock Wine Shop comes on the heels of a two-year period of growth in which Tock's reservation system increased 175%, according to a company statement. Initial offerings include wines from 30 wineries including Heitz Cellar, MacRostie Winery Estate, Tank Garage Winery, and Round Pond Estate. The wines available through the app were previously only available by direct purchase during in-person tastings. Ultimately, the goal is to offer wines from hundreds of wineries around the world. 

We took a spin around the online shop, and the easy-to-navigate site encourages consumers to explore wines by price, style, region, and flavor. It offers a mix-and-match approach to shopping, allowing customers to even select single bottles of a particular vintage. It also recognizes that all wine lovers, from nascent oenophiles to vested connoisseurs appreciate clear descriptions of flavor profiles when browsing the offerings. Tock's mission, according to its new campaign is "to inspire consumers to support handcrafted, small producer wines, family vineyards, and celebrated winemakers both locally and nationwide."