Can a wine club be cool?

Hey all,

This is my first post, and I’m wondering, what makes a wine club worth while?

There are so many worthless wine of the month type clubs out there and I have never been tempted to join one because they didn’t provide anything of value to me. However, I am now in the position of starting one for my own business and I don’t want it to be lame. So, I’m asking for your input.

What makes a club cool?
Are there any examples of clubs doing it right that I should research?
What do you want in a club?

My wife and I import and retail grower Champagne. We buy it straight from the growers and sell it direct to consumer. We have 39 distinct cuvées right now and everyone keeps asking me about starting a club. I have been thinking about offering different cuvées for different times of the year. Such as, Vintage Champagne in the fall, fresh cuvées in the spring, mineral driven cuvées in the summer, and rich cuvées in the winter. Or, we could have a Vintage tier, Rosé tier, Blanc de Blancs tier, Low Dosage tier, etc. That way a club member chooses a preference and we select bottles that represent that preference. But that still doesn’t sound enticing enough for me.

I would love any ideas/thoughts/rants/etc. Cheers, Bryan

From my perspective, you have some of the ingredients to do an appealing club. For me a club needs to have several components to be worthwhile:

1)Offer me something I cannot get elsewhere (at least not easily). Sounds like you may have the market cornered on what you’re bringing in
2)Offer me things I want, within in a fairly narrow band (ie if I have to just take what you send and you send 3 cool reds and a bottle of white zin…no bueno). I think your thought of a Rose club, a Vintage Club, etc helps here. Ability for me to customize each order is even better, but I’m sure a huge headache for you.
3)Structure it so I feel like there’s a price incentive to being a member.
4)If you’re shipping, help that not be punative to me. Clubs that ship 2 bottles every other month and charge me $20+ shipping are non-starters. Consider quarterly or 3x/year.
5)While subtle, good info sheets that come with each wine are a plus, in my book.
6)Don’t make me agree to an annual committment when I register. If it’s done right, I won’t want to leave. If I want to leave, is it really good PR to make me stay? Plus this makes me suspicious right up-front of what past customer trend had made this necessary.

I’m sure there’s more, and others may disagree with me on a few of these. But that’s my 2 pesos.

Thanks Chad!

Great info and perspective for me to consider. I appreciate your time.

Bryan - related to Chris, Tom or Rob?

Bryan -

I took a look at your website, and think that a “wineclub” per say would not be the thing to do -

The nice things about wine clubs is, the wide variety of wines available. All you have is Champagne, which appeals to a much smaller base of customer. I don’t think it would be worth the effort and the customers you would attract would be coming on board because they are Champagne fans - and who, in other words, would have already been attracted to the site.

I liked your website alot, and I’ve built quite a few of them. I would work on getting the name of your website out there more, and promoting the reason to drink bubbly 365 days a year.

Instead of a"wine club" - I would do a “Champagne house of the month” with your various houses and give decent discounts for that month only on that respective brand. The incentive to try different champagnes each month would build your customer base and keep them active each month as a different house gets featured, and being able to purchase a non-vintage grower champagne that normally sells for $45 that is suddenly $36 would build volume. Those customers that purchased a champagne on a sale price would come back and pay regular price if they knew the liked the product, just getting the bottles in their hands is the important thing.

You have a very unique selection, play that up. And start networking on wine sites that attract champagne drinkers (like you have done here) - you will be surprised at the wide customer base available to you.

You will be shocked at the exposure you will get just on this site alone - just stay active on the site, post a lot in Wine Talk and Asylum and make sure you don’t “shill” any of your products directly. I can think of 5-6 retailers that literally built their business on actively posting on this site and the erpobertparker.com site and just getting their name and site out there.

And take advantage of the e-mail. Save every e-mail address you get and do a monthly newsletter with lots of color photos of your champagne houses etc and the areas they come from (tying in your “house of the month”) with histories of the houses and get as geeky as possible.

Good luck…

I’m not in the business but look in on this forum occasionally. IMO Thomas Keim’s suggestions are excellent. A Champagne house of the month would possibly allow for different Champagnes to suit customer preferences–a rose’ for one couple or individual, a Blanc de Blanc for another, a vintage Champagne for another, all at a discounted price that month. It could also allow for ordering just one bottle or two or more bottles. Give the customer the option of purchasing or passing that month–not committed to receiving bottles every month.

“All you have is Champagne, which appeals to a much smaller but fanatical base of customer.”

Fixed.

Bryan,

You’re located in Seattle? Do you have a storefront presence in Seattle?
because:

  1. would be cool to drop by and see it
  2. would eliminate shipping cost! :slight_smile:

Thank you Roberto. My girlfriend was a recipient of the Grateful Palate Champagne of the Month Club (which was awesome BTW!), but not sure if they’re still offering it.

We looked forward to the shipment EVERY month!

Go with your gut and build your dream. They (the fanatical) will come!

Good luck.

For sure! They are my uncles in Portland!

Thank you very much for all of the input. Terence, Jane, and Thomas, I really appreciate your thoughts and time. Cheers!

We don’t have a storefront per say, but rather a small underground warehouse and tasting room in lower Queen Anne. We would love to have you and your friends stop by and check out our selections in person, just bring jackets as we keep it chilly!

Champagne is something I am very interested in, wish I drank/owned more of, but because of cost - don’t drink a lot of. I know a number of ITB people that would never be in a traditional wine club, but are in champagne clubs. For me, I’d like the option of being charged monthly, but the ability to consolidate until I got to 6-12 bottles to save on shipping. That said, I’d also want the option to reload, so I might not be the ideal customer for someone like you but I did want to contribute my 2c.

If your focus is Grower champagne I want to know more about the grower. I want to see pictures of the land, people and vines that made what’s in the bottle. You dont often see this detail from large retailers, garagiste has mastered this idea in words, but I would like to see somebody do it with real pictures and less fluff.