Wine Club Recommendations?

Hi all - I am based in the NYC area and am currently reviewing my list of wine clubs. I wanted to get the group’s thoughts to see if there was anything I was missing that meets the criteria below:

Key Items of Importance:
-Good selection of wines priced in $20-50/bottle range (ok to have higher priced ones but don’t want everything that’s not a Rose to be $100+)
-Solid discounts off list price (e.g., 20-25%+ off with ~6-12 bottle commitment per year)
-Access to wines that are generally not available in NYC-area retail stores
-Ability to customize shipments
-Free/heavily discounted shipping to NY/NJ (not interested in paying $50/case to ship wines that often offset any discount)

Less Important:
-Free/discounted tastings or in-person events
-Specific varietals/regions (open to any that meet criteria above domestically or internationally)

Current clubs that meet most or all of these criteria that I enjoy - Jaffurs, Keenan, Armida

Any others I should consider? I’m going to likely cull the ones that offered great in-person experiences when I used to live in CA but which underperform in the other areas.

Appreciate any insight!

Not wine clubs, but in your price range I would consider signing up for Bedrock, Sandlands and Desire Lines.

I enjoy the Schramsberg club, get a nice selection of their wines a few times per year. Other than that, Carlisle may fit into your mailing list or Patricia Green

I like Tablas Creek and they meet the majority of your criteria including discounts and a good selection.

That’s going to be tough, I don’t see a lot of (any, really) places offering 20%+ off for a commitment of 12 bottles or less per year.

I live in Washington State and have belonged to approximately 25 different west coast, mostly Washington, winery clubs over the past decade, that all meet your description except for:

“Free/heavily discounted shipping to NY/NJ (not interested in paying $50/case to ship wines that often offset any discount)”

I understand your rationale, but I’d suggest “shipping is never free” and if it’s “included” in the club shipment cost, the winery is making up that difference somewhere else, likely in the original retail price and even the discounted price. I have had some wineries offer “free shipping” for special events, but none of the 25 or so I’ve ever belonged to have routinely excluded shipping costs for club members. One of the reasons is that many of their club members are local or pick up at the winery, so including shipping would artificially inflate those prices unless they had two different clubs. Then it’s just a confusing mess over who pays what.

All that said, best clubs i’ve belonged to that provide good discounts, depending on volume and length of membership, include Rotie Cellars, Walla Walla, WA Rhone varieties from Washington/Oregon, Adams Bench, Woodinville, WA Bordeaux varieties from allover Washington, and JB Neufeld (new club in past 2 or so years), Yakima, WA Cabernet Sauvignon and others from Yakima. These all fit my my wife’s palates, and for my money provide same quality as other wineries where retail prices is 50-100% higher than these at the start, so even though I pick up most of the time, I wouldn’t mind paying shipping in the overall value proposition.

Frogs Leap? I don’t usually see their wines other than Cab and SB at retail here in VA. They send zin, rose, merlot, etc as well as cab and SB. They also often send back vintages which is nice.

Stony Hill used to be my go-to recommendation, but I’m weary given the changes in management. Sad!

I’d say just explore around, and when you find a producer you really like across the board at what you consider reasonable prices, look into whether you want to be on a list or club with them.

I wouldn’t be driven by the club programs themselves. The end result is going to be that you will be buying and drinking a great many wines from this producer, so the most important thing is how much you like them. Nominally getting 20% or 25% isn’t what’s going to make it worthwhile.

I just signed up for Tablas Vindependent. Discounts but only need to buy six of whatever you want each year. I like that flexibility.

Some of the BD wineries don’t have clubs but mailing lists that give you first crack at new releases often with a discount and or shipping included. Also flexible and not a hige commitment.

I like Ridge ATP but I might cut my number of bottles. So many good Rhone varietals from lots of other wineries and only so much space.

Something to consider as you’re looking at lists:

“Free” or discounted shipping, is neither free nor discounted. More often wines with free than not that is at least in part built into the price of the bottle that you’re purchasing.

Consider the following examples:
Producer A sells wine for $45, but chargers $60/case to ship.
Producer B sells wine for $50 and has free shipping with the purchase of of 12+ bottles

Both end up costing you the exact same in this example, but how you perceive each offer may be vastly different. So while sometimes shipping costs may seem steep, consider the all in price per bottle, not just the sticker price of the bottle as you’re reviewing clubs. That way, you’re actually comparing apples to apples.

I think you need new batteries in your calculator. Producer B is $60 more.

You are correct. I meant to use $45/bottle as the example. Fixed it

Thanks all, helpful feedback and good perspectives.

Two thoughts that come to mind:

1. I feel like wine clubs tend to have a certain customer focus. For example, some clubs are either very small production and/or exclusive which draws a certain customer who either likes the wine and/or the prestige it brings them. Other clubs are known for having great in person experiences - either a great tasting room setting, legendary pick-up parties, etc. Is there a third group that caters to customers that prefer more value and prefers their wines to be shipped vs. picked up in person?

2. It appears that shipping isn’t all created equal. The mom and pop shop that sends 5 cases to New York isn’t going to get the same rate as a larger winery that ships 500, who I assume will still pay more than the larger players. Does anyone have a good sense of what this price differential is and how much cost the winery is eating when they offer free shipping?

Of course all good to remember that first and foremost I should like the wines more than any wine club benefit .

Dan,

The topic of shipping costs has been discussed a few times here on Wine Berserkers. Here’s a recent thread on it for some more insight on it. https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3142870

Shipping costs are largely the same for most producers, it comes down to how much they are willing or able to subsidise some or all of that cost for their costumers. Whatever the scenario is for shipping, I think it’s safe to assume that the producer chose a model that works financially for them. My comments was just to make sure you don’t dismiss producers just because they charge for shipping.

I wrote this on the board a few years back, maybe it’s relevant to Dan:



I don’t think this happens but rarely with any lists I buy off of, and if it does, the odds that the price difference is enough to be worth making a separate order and paying separate shipping for the wine in question is very low.

I think, however, this is quite common with your big wineries, when you buy off their club or buy directly from them at their tasting room or off their website.

For example, I just looked on BV’s website. If you join their wine club, you get 20% off their wines and products. However, their 2012 Tapestry Reserve is $65 from the winery, so with a 20% discount it’s still $52, plus you’ll be paying shipping unless you pick them up in person. At Costco today in Fountain Valley, the 2012 Tapestry Reserve was $39. On WSPro, you can find legit retailers selling this for as little as $23 (Leiser’s) and $27 (Sokolin).

Or look at the 2012 Georges de Latour. $135 on BV’s website, or $108 after your wine club discount. This same wine is widely available at $75-80 looking on WSPro.

Clubs at wineries like BV are neither for the bargain shopper nor the WBer type. I think they exist for one or more of the following: (a) as a convenience to someone who wants to have their wines arrive regularly without having to think about it or do anything, (b) for people who make an impulse decision, probably while visiting the tasting room and having a lovely time, without really doing any homework about the value proposition, and (c) for people who are into the events and tasting room, and maybe the prestige of telling people they’re in the wine club, and don’t really care about the pricing and all.

And that’s fine - I don’t mean to imply that everyone in the world needs to spend a bunch of time paying the least they can for everything - but I think that sort of explains what is going on with those kinds of clubs.

I don’t know of many wineries that are the subject of a lot of interest and discussion here on WB where this is the case, and if it is, it’s more likely a single bottling or two from a winery that pop up on a discount somewhere, not a consistent and large discount available widely at retail as compared to the winery’s price. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be buying from that winery either, probably not at retail or direct.

I understand that wineries walk a fine line about not undercutting their distributors, but they should feel even more strongly about not undercutting their club and list members. I get that they aren’t responsible when a store somewhere clears out a wine of theirs for cheap and I have no problem with that happening, but if you’re consistently selling at substantially above retail pricing, I wouldn’t be part of that. Frank is right that we have connections and fondness for the wineries we love, but I don’t think I’d be feeling much of a connection if they were charging me $53 for wine I could buy for $25-30 in stores and doing so on a regular basis, while pretending I’m getting a 20% discount. Loyalty is a two way street.

What I’m looking for personally, in roughly descending order of importance:

(1) I love the wines, and they are pretty consistently good from year to year

(2) The price buying from the winery is good relative to the quality of the wine

(3) I have a lot of flexibility to order what I want, whether it’s just a mailing list offer, or a wine club which is completely customizable. I’m not going to take whatever grab bag of wines they want to send me, or be part of some bundle system where I have to buy wines I don’t want in order to get the ones that I do want, or have to spend years buying wines I’m lukewarm about so that later on I can buy the ones I actually want.

(4) The required number of bottles purchased, if any, is not higher than I’m comfortable with.

(5) Pricing is not consistently above the price that the wines sell at retail

(6) I like the winery, the people, and the customer service

(7) Invitations to events and tastings that I can at least occasionally attend

(8) Bragging rights with other wine geeks (just kidding)

Seriously, just keep tasting and trying, when you find a producer you really love and which has pricing that makes sense to you, and which you want to start buying and drinking year after year, see what kinds of programs they have. What’s in the glass is going to be the key thing for you, not free tastings, nominal discounts, invitations to events, swag, glossy brochures, and stuff like that.

I personally hate it when they have too many shipments in a year.

I was in a club that was 2x 3 bottle shipments. They moved to a 2x 2 bottle schedule and when I asked why they said so that the per shipment price went down. That didn’t make economic sense to me as now you’re charging shipping 3x and creating more waste then necessary or making me drive to pickup one extra time.

As far as specific recommendations, here is a rare club I just signed up for, based on this thread. If you’re looking for good Napa cab at a reasonable (for Napa at least) price, this might be one to consider.

Scherrer isn’t a wine club (at least I don’t think, though maybe they could set something up for you), but they offer wines off a mailing list, have some sales and discounts at time, and fantastically discounted pricing if you buy cases a year ahead on futures. Another nice thing is that they make very good pinot noir, zinfandel, cabernet and chardonnay, which covers a lot of the main basis, the prices are very moderate, the wines have a great track record of aging yet can be drunk young too. You can read about them a lot on this board.

I know this doesn’t really fit your criteria but you since you’re in NYC, you should look into the Grand Crew wine club at Le Du’s in the West Village. They pick a theme each month and send you 3 bottles along with notes on all the wines. The advantage of this relative to a producer’s wine club is that you will get a very wide variety from around the world. They also offer discounts on in person tastings at the shop (once those become a thing again) and some other benefits. I think shipping is free in the tri state area but you’ll have to check.