By which I mean traditional wine clubs where you are “forced” to buy a certain amount of wine each year and generally get a 20% discount on wines.
This is probably not the most popular winery model for serious wine buyers who feel they want to choose for themselves. However there are a few excellent wineries where this seems to be their sales model. Last night i opened a '12 Ojai, Sauv Blanc and a '12 Tablas, Esprit, Blanc. Two excellent wines from my two favorite clubs.
Ojai: There have always different types of clubs but you were forced to take what was offered in each of these clubs. This didn’t bother me as almost all of their wines are really good. Recently there have been some changes to these clubs and they now have an option for you to buy a case or two a year at the usual 20% discount, and you pick the bottles for the case yourself! This just seems like a win-win situation for those of us who like their wines.
Tablas Creek: They have three different clubs. One where you choose yourself with a smaller discount (15%). The others where they choose with a better discount (20-25%). I’ve been in the latter clubs in the past, but dropped out because I felt that I was offered too many single variety wines that to me were not as interesting as their blends. I rejoined just last spring as I noticed that almost all the wines offered are now the very blends that I enjoy so much with just one single variety wine thrown in. Also if you are in the collectors club you get some older Esprit wines in the fall.
What are your favorite traditional wine clubs, if any?
I like the Roederer Estate Magnum Club. It’s just a 6 mag per year commitment (2 shipments each with one Brut, one Rosé and one L’Ermitage). You can add a 3L Brut at Xmas if you like.
I did like Tablas Creek though I dropped it just because I was buying from too many places.
Arcadian, to me, is the gold standard of actual wine clubs. The minimum one is 4 x 2 bottles per year, they’ll pretty much let you substitute anything you want in place of the designated shipment, they have a couple of sales during the year with 30-50% type discounts, they have lots of old vintages of great wines with modest markups. And it’s one of the very best quality and best value wineries in the state.
I think the only other true wine club I belong to is Denner. I get 4 bottles twice a year, which is about right for me. And on at least two occasions, I’ve nicely asked if I could skip an allocation and they said no problem.
Love Tablas Creek. Did the Windy Oaks and Arcadian clubs because I love their pinots, but just started getting too many bottles of Windy Oaks and Arcadian just got too expensive. Kept the Tablas Creek because of its value and diversity of really good wines.
I’ve never signed up, but Ridge has had its Advanced Tasting Program (ATP) for decades. If you’re on the list, you get all sorts of special ATP bottlings – small lots, often from unusual varietals – that are not sold in stores. Many are never offered to the general public in the tasting rooms, either.
I’m in the Zlist club, with the discount and plus the shipping, the cost per bottle is a tiny bit less than I see in retail around here and I don’t have to worry about forgetting to pick some up
and it also gives me some limited access to special bottlings.
Ridge has 3 wine clubs: The ATP, the Z-List, and the MonteBelloCollectors.
The MB Collectors gets you a futures price on the MonteBello at a significant discount, plus access to several of their single-vnyd
varietals off their MB Estate.
The Z-List gets you a Fall/Spring pre-release (by a month) of their Fall&Spring Zinfandel release, so you can re-order before
the general release.
The ATP gets you an every-other-month release of odds&ends that are made in too small lots for general release, including most
of the RidgeRhones. There has been some grousing of the quality of the ATP wines over the yrs, including by yours truly. I would
taste the Buchignani Carignane or the MazzoniHomeRanch and think “meh”…not as good as Geyserville/Pagani/Lytton. But over the
last few yrs, there has been a noticeable up-tick in quality of the ATP wines as Eric/John/Dave have but more care into these. I would
like to think that my whining & complaining about the ATP wines brought this about…so you can thank me for that!!
Jaffurs also has a great club - and takes care of their customers wonderfully.
Second to both the Tablas and Ridge clubs - solid producers making a bunch of wines that don’t go much beyond their wine clubs. Yep, sometimes there ARE benefits for being a club member
Sleight of Hand Cellars has 6- or 12-pack clubs that come with a 10%/20% discount per shipment (and corresponding discount in the tasting room). Only 2 shipments per year. March is 3 bottles each of Archimage (red blend) and Illusionist (Cab); October is 4 bottles of Levitation (Syrah) and 2 bottles of Sorceress (Grenache) [the '12 Sorceress was really, really good BTW…]. Those quantities are doubled for the 12-bottle club.
We really dig their wine and the discount more than makes up for shipping. They are also great about letting you add on non-shipment wines with the same discount (like the Psychadelic Syrah, etc.). I can usually find some of their wines around town, but they’re usually a bit more $$ than buying direct with the discount.
Club members can rent the 3BR guest house at the winery (although we’ve never done it), and we also get invited to their release-weekend parties (which look like great fun, but again, we’ve never been able to attend).
Trey and the tasting room folks are all wonderful and very accessible. Awesome customer service. And the best WW tasting room music hands down.
Another shout out for the Ridge MB. STEEP futures discount, access to small production interesting wines.
Liquid Farm also has several levels, and offer very generous discounts on great wines.
I second Jaffurs. You can take their full line up or just the single vineyard Syrahs.
A local favorite is Creekside Cellars. What I like about them is they make a club only wine which usually is very good and there’s only one way to get it.
Navarro Vineyards produces great wines at great prices and most wines are only available directly from the winery. I just rejoined after a couple years off.
I’ve been a Merryvale club member for 7 years.
Quarterly purchases of 3 or more bottles are required. Recent changes to the program allow one to customize the order to any 3 bottles from the listed wines. (One can reduce the qty to 2 but the per bottle shipping is costly)
Doubling the purchase quantity to 6 gets free shipping, which is the economical approach, especially if you’re all the way across the country.
I was disappointed when they stopped including their flagship wine in the quarterly club listings.
Mia Nipote for those that want minimal requirements
Make a Single Vineyard Cab and S.B. from their Lencioni estate vineyard in Livermore
Chad Alexander makes their wines and used to be head winemaker at Robert Craig
Cab goes for only 42.00! (10% off through club/ 15% once its 12+ bottles) and won gold at SF Chronicle Competition
Only 4 bottles a year!!
Complimentary Invite to 2 huge parties a year (band/food/wine)
Can schedule private tastings at their home for up to 12 people
B Cellars for those that love wine/food/hospitality
3 Levels based on bottle price point
3 shipments of 3 bottles or a customizable case (1 dollar shipping)
20% off then 30% off on re-orders within 1st month
all clubs get 4 oakville trek passes a shipment ($60 experience of small bite/wine pairing and tour)
case and top level also get 2 private beckstoffer cave tastings or 2 garden food pairings a shipment ($125 experience)
We are active in a few clubs, all of which we do pick-up rather than shipping
Rutherford Hill - 4 shipments of three bottles - 20% discount on wines, 25% on any club reorder. Free tastings and cave tours. Special club tastings every weekend from library wines. Discounts to special events. We’ve used the free tastings and tours quite a bit. We can call and just schedule for friends that are in the area and we don’t need to be with them. Allows for skipping any orders.
Black Stallion - 4 shipments of four bottles - 20% discount on wines, 25% on any club reorder. Nice little gift included in each club order. Free tastings, tours and private tastings. Great events that are free to members. We really like that they are free to us, but rarely get to them though the one we’ve been to have been very nice. Allow for skipping any orders.
Paraduxx - 4 shipments of 2-3 bottles - NO wine discount. Free tastings for you and friends. Free shipping of club orders. Club pricing on special events. This one we keep mainly for the free tastings. They have a nice, relaxed outdoor tasting we like to take friends to.
Pine Ridge - 4 shipments of 4 bottles - 20% discount on wines. Free tastings and tours. 20% discount on specialty tastings. Some free, some club priced events. Just joined this one last trip, so not much experience yet.
Clubs we have been in, in the past:
Markham - First club that we joined. Quit because we just found wines we liked better.
Imagery - Quit because they produce such varied wines we didn’t always like what was in the shipment.
Broken Earth - Quit because at the time they were using a small delivery service that didn’t offer holding for pick-up or weekend delivery. Still great value wines that I will now purchase when they have shipping specials. They now use UPS and I have an off-site shipping address.
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