FOOD & DRINK
Let’s Go
Clubbing Choosing a wine club that can work for you
O
nline wine clubs offer a big assist when it comes to stocking up on a range of exciting wines, branching out from what you might be familiar with or getting bottles from vineyards that could be hard to find at your local shop. Getting a bargain from bulk buying is an added bonus. But picking a wine club—like selecting a bottle to go with dinner or to pop open at a party—involves a little thought and an understanding of one’s tastes and palate predilections. Some of us are good at shopping, at venturing into the marketplace and finding what we want. Others can find the prospect daunting: the hubbub of commerce, the expertise, the confrontations with the limitations of our own knowledge, the quiet fear of being duped. Wine clubs allow consumers the luxury of letting experts do some of the work for us. If you enjoy curated playlists on streaming music services—isn’t it nice to have recommendations from Barack Obama?—then you can think of a wine club as something similar. And, given the fact that many of us are still scaling back some of our closed-space retail outings in the face of ongoing concerns about COVID-19, a wine club is another way to reduce exposure. The question is which wine club will fit your needs. There are clubs devoted to the wines of particular states, countries, varietals and regions. If all you want is Cabernet, there’s a club for that.
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Wine clubs can be as collaborative or as hands-off as you wish, depending whether you want to keep honing your tastes and reporting back to the club with your evolving palate sensibilities or simply forget about it, knowing that someone else is making wise wine decisions on your behalf. Some clubs begin with a series of questions about what food and drink you like, extrapolating some tendencies that might apply to wine. Are you a strong coffee person, or a green tea drinker? Do you prefer smoky barbecue or light baked fish? If you’re crazy about organic and natural wines, there are sommelier-led clubs that will help you delve deeper into that world. One of the first players in the wine-club game is the Wine of the Month Club, which started in the 1970s and prides itself on screening the wines, providing reading material and lots of information about the wines they send out to members each month. Wines from all over the world are featured. The fee is never more than $24.96 a month for two bottles (plus shipping and handling, which varies depending on the state). Say you’ve become interested in natural wines. Natural Wine Company, which specializes in small-operation vineyards, might be a good fit. You can choose from having six or 12 bottles delivered per month, and you can opt for all reds, all whites, or a mix. The six-bottle level costs $200 a month, while the twelve-bottle tier is $400 a month. Learn about lesser-known varietals and artisanal techniques through this club.
Photo: iStockphoto.com/Andrey Elkin.
BY JOHN ADAMIAN
