{"id":2236,"date":"2022-11-30T15:15:54","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T15:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2236"},"modified":"2022-11-30T21:21:49","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T21:21:49","slug":"wine-club-deliveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2236","title":{"rendered":"Wine Club Deliveries"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re in a winery and you just adore<\/em> the wines you\u2019ve been tasting.\u00a0 In fact, you\u2019re quite voluble about it, telling your friends and total strangers just how good these wines are.\u00a0 At this point, the friendly waitperson who has been serving you suggests you join their wine club. \u00a0Your powers of sales resistance are at an all-time, alcohol-induced low.\u00a0 So you sign up.<\/p>\n

We like to think we have stiffer spines than that, but we also know we\u2019ve joined around twenty clubs over the course of time and are currently members of six of them.\u00a0 (It\u2019s a good idea to join for a while and then resign when you have enough from that producer in your collection.)\u00a0 We very much enjoy receiving great wine, even if we have to put some of them down for a few years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of The Spruce Eats.<\/em><\/p>\n

What we don\u2019t like very much is the process we have to go through to get those wines.<\/p>\n

For one thing, there are too many deliveries.\u00a0 For example, one of the clubs we belong to delivers six times a year.\u00a0 At the other extreme, another club only wants you to buy a certain number of bottle each year, which we take advantage of each spring.<\/p>\n

And then there are the shipping costs.\u00a0 In many instances, the fee for sending you the wines is nearly equivalent to an additional bottle.\u00a0 One thing we appreciate in some clubs is the occasional special deal for reduced rate shipping.<\/p>\n

Prior to each shipment, the winery sends you an announcement of the next wines they\u2019ve chosen for their members.\u00a0 We have found that in virtually every selection, there is at least one wine that we don\u2019t particularly want.\u00a0 Most clubs allow you to customize your order or to switch out some wines, but most expect you to buy the same number of bottles, or to spend the same amount of money.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t be so bad if wineries had first rate information systems to serve their members.\u00a0 Sadly, that is not often the case.\u00a0 We have had experience with web sites that are inaccessible, that don\u2019t show all the wines available, that will allow you to add to an order but not subtract, or that simply don\u2019t work.\u00a0 At this point there is no alternative but calling the winery, which especially in these pandemic times means that you leave a message for someone working at home, who may or may not get back to you in a timely manner.<\/p>\n

We have also experienced mess-ups on the winery\u2019s side that resulted in our getting the wines we ordered and<\/em> the wines that were on the original membership shipment list.\u00a0 If the winery is nice, they\u2019ll tell you to keep the wines you hadn\u2019t asked for because it was their error.\u00a0 In other cases, we have had to return the unwanted wines, which is a general pain.<\/p>\n

Now, don\u2019t let us deter you from joining one or more clubs you\u2019re genuinely interested in.\u00a0 But no matter how large or famous the winery may be, they\u2019re still small businesses, with the systems and processes that are the weaknesses of all such enterprises.\u00a0 Enjoy your wine, because you probably won\u2019t be too crazy about the process of getting it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re in a winery and you just adore the wines you\u2019ve been tasting.\u00a0 In fact, you\u2019re quite voluble about it, telling your friends and total strangers just how good these wines are.\u00a0 At this point, the friendly waitperson who has been serving you suggests you join their wine club. \u00a0Your powers of sales resistance are … Continue reading Wine Club Deliveries<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2248,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions\/2248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}