In almost all California wineries, when you go wine tasting you’ll find a brochure (or your server will give you one) inviting you to join their wine club. At that very moment, it usually seems like a great idea. The few sips you’ve had so far appeal to you; the room is warm; the server is friendly; and the wine is beginning to lighten your mood. So why not?
There are some very good reasons to join a wine club and about as many that would lead you to decide not to. Being a member certainly makes a difference to your wine tasting experience, as we have written previously. So let’s give some thought as to how you might decide whether to join.
The first question you should ask yourself is whether you like the wine. Even more, do you like it enough to want to receive a case every year? If the answer is “yes”, by all means join the club. But if not, think twice. That’s because by joining you are signing up for at least a case annually. A slightly more nuanced question is whether you like all of a winery’s production, or just certain (usually the top tier) wines? If you would welcome getting some but not all of their wines, you should follow up with some more questions.
- Can you select just the wines you want? Or as we call it, can you customize? Many clubs will offer you just the whites or the reds or the sparklings or however they split up their production. So if, for example, you like all their red wines but aren’t eager to get their whites, limit your deliveries accordingly.
- But what if you only like some of their reds? Again, some wine clubs will allow you to specify certain varietals. For another example, we are members of a few wine clubs in the Carneros region from which we only receive Pinot Noirs .
- But what if you only like one or two of their wines? That’s a bit tougher and many wineries won’t let you choose only one or a few. But some do, and then you’ll get a dozen bottle of the same wine year after year. Do you really like it that much?
For the most part, wineries select certain wines for you for each shipment and that’s what you get. You may not even be allowed to cancel an order you don’t want. Some, however, will allow you to change their selections to your preferred wines. This is another way of limiting what you get to what you like.
Another reason for you to join a wine club is to have the opportunity for free tastings whenever you visit. So before joining a club, ask yourself whether you like the experience in a particular winery enough to come back. Or put another way, would you like to come this way again repeatedly? If you don’t see yourself in that part of Wine Country very often in the future, maybe it’s a good idea to pass on this club.
For some people, a consideration is how often a wine club delivers. One of our clubs send two bottles every two months. That’s six time a year waiting at home for UPS, which can be a drag. The ones we appreciate most have two annual shipments; the norm is four. They usually arrive in spring and fall, since shipping can be tricky in deep winter and wines don’t like cross-country transportation at the height of the summer.
We travel to California for wine tasting every year, so we have certain places where we like the wines a lot, find the tasting rooms and their outdoor areas very inviting and the servers to be congenial and welcoming. So membership makes sense for us.
At a certain point, you may find your wine rack overloading with wines from one or more of your clubs. Maybe the wines appealed more to you on vacation than when you started drinking them at home. Maybe the food you make in your own kitchen isn’t very compatible with the wines you loved so much on that visit two years ago. Maybe enough is just enough. Then quit the club! It’s not a lifetime commitment and you can always join a different wine club and fill out your cellar.