Best Wine Clubs and Subscriptions to Gift in 2024
Best wine club and subscriptions to gift in 2024
<div id="bef8564c-a349-4dde-afc6-85aa3579816a" data-cy="shortcodeListicle" data-id="listicle-bef8564c-a349-4dde-afc6-85aa3579816a" data-location="LIST" content="LIST ITEM" superlative="Best wine club for intermediates" page-position linktext linkurl like dislike can-truncate="true" truncate-on-page-load="true" offer techobjectinfo overridecredit="Firstleaf" overridecaption="
Curated (and affordable) wine selections delivered to your door. Yes, please.
” imagegroup=”{"uuid":"38a89790-d307-42a8-82da-aa495624c84c","alt":"3 bottles of wine in a box","caption":"
Curated (and affordable) wine selections delivered to your door. Yes, please.
","credits":"Firstleaf","imageData":{"id":"38a89790-d307-42a8-82da-aa495624c84c","filename":"firstleaf-wine-club.jpg","path":"https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/961d1402538b76b8ec95155315edc0d00fbc21aa/hub/2019/06/11/38a89790-d307-42a8-82da-aa495624c84c/firstleaf-wine-club.jpg?auto=webp&height=500","dateCreated":{"date":"2019-06-11 13:40:56.000000","timezone":"UTC","timezone_type":3},"primeColor":null,"hasWarning":false},"size":"","float":"","lightbox":false,"imageUrl":"https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/961d1402538b76b8ec95155315edc0d00fbc21aa/hub/2019/06/11/38a89790-d307-42a8-82da-aa495624c84c/firstleaf-wine-club.jpg?auto=webp&height=500","imageCaption":"
Curated (and affordable) wine selections delivered to your door. Yes, please.
","imageCredit":"Firstleaf","imageAltText":"3 bottles of wine in a box","imageFilename":"firstleaf-wine-club.jpg","imageWidth":1800,"imageHeight":895,"imageDoNotCrop":false,"imageDoNotResize":false,"imageWatermark":false,"imageDateCreated":"2019-06-11","imageParallax":"","imageCrop":"","imageEnlarge":false}” usepricing=”true” ng-block=”{"id":"xfi2rq8alo34i95","type":"listicle"}” edition=”us” data-key=”cnetlisticle__bef8564c-a349-4dde-afc6-85aa3579816a” position=”NaN” pagelayout=”Default – Article Page” class=”c-shortcodeListicleCard sm:u-col-2 md:u-col-6 lg:u-col-4 g-inner-spacing-bottom-xlarge”>
I tried this wine club and have to say the hit rate of solid wines was extremely high for my moderately experienced palate. If you’ve graduated from the Gallos and the Cupcakes and want to include more nuanced, complex and higher-priced premium wine in your life, Firstleaf Wine Club might be good for you too. Its palate quiz is one of the most involved, asking for varietal (Pinot Noir vs. Shiraz, for instance) preferences in addition to using several household name wines as taste benchmarks.
This intelligent wine subscription service gets to know you by asking about certain tasting notes and qualities you might prefer in your perfect wine — such as minerality — in contrast to similar quizzes, which assume many don’t know what that means. In short, this is probably the best wine club for a wine enthusiast who has the basics down and is ready to launch into expert wine-tasting territory.
Firstleaf’s Classic Plan offers six tailored bottles of wine delivered per month for $90. The Preferred Plan offers a select (which means higher valued) six-bottle offering for $105 per month. Meanwhile, the Premier option gives you six bottles of top-tier wine for $120 per month, or go for the very best with the Fine Wine Plan that gives you six bottles from the Fine Wine Collection for $150 per month. You can schedule the delivery frequency however you please (according to the company, most customers pick an “every other month” schedule), and can swap out each of your selections through your account, but if you don’t like the replacement, you’ll have to email customer support. Otherwise, skipping a single order, putting your account on hold, reactivating it and canceling your subscription altogether can all be done through your online wine club account.
Firstleaf offers a promotional discount on your first shipment, with pricing starting at $45 for your first shipment on a classic plan.
Cellars Wine Club
Cellars Wine Club ($34 and up per month) actually offers eight different wine clubs that you can switch between, based on your preferences. An expert team of wine sommeliers tastes and chooses the curated wines for the clubs every month. Ultimately, these sommelier experts draw from the same pool of wines, but the individual sub-clubs cater to specific tastes and categories.
Most of these sub-clubs ship a wine box with two wine bottles or more per month. Clubs are curated by themes like 90-plus point wines, sparkling wines and even a sweet wine club. While other services, especially palate-based ones, box you into experiencing certain kinds of wine, Cellars allows the wine drinker to be adventurous from one wine shipment to the next without compromising quality.
Switching between clubs can be done online through your account, but if you want to cancel your subscription, you have to reach out to customer service.
For Francophiles, this wine club seeks to replicate the sommelier in a fine French restaurant or wine bar but from the comfort of your home. For one, all the wines come from France, but the team selecting them also lives and works in French wine regions and thus is intimately acquainted with the nuance of the product. To further drill down on the sommelier experience, SomMailer includes thoughtful food pairings and in-depth descriptions with every bottle.
To sign up for SomMailer, you’ll choose either three bottles ($110 per shipment), six bottles ($209) or 12 bottles ($399) to be delivered quarterly and then select all red wine, all white wine or a mix of both. Subscriptions to SomMailer can be canceled anytime, but if you want to just try one box (or gift a box of three or six French wines to a friend), you can do that too.
The best part is if you find a wine you really love, SomMailer will sell you a case of three, six or 12 bottles a la carte. This is great because you may not be able to find every wine you try in your local package store.
Roscioli Italian Wine Club
For those partial to old-world wine, Roscioli curates a selection of Italian bottles for decidedly discerning palates. The Roscioli family has been a fixture in Italy’s food, wine and hospitality scene for two centuries. More recently, they’ve bottled up all that knowledge into a high-end wine club for serious imbibers and collectors alike.
Members of this wine club will receive two 12-bottle shipments per year (24 total) of Italian and old-world wines with an emphasis on biodiversity and biodynamics. Roscioli offers three subscription tiers starting at $860 per year for its Essential Italian Wine Club, $1,160 a year for the Premium Wine Club or $2,160 for the Collector Italian Wine Club.
Roscioli Wine Club ships nationwide in the US, and each shipment includes pairing suggestions and scannable QR codes that trigger video introductions to the winemaker. Membership also includes access to Roscioli’s online community platform of wine courses and a portal where members can ask anything (well, anything wine-related) of an Italian winemaker or sommelier.
The best part? Club members can cash in on a complimentary wine tasting at Roscioli when visiting Rome.
