The 5 Best Father's Day Wine Club Gifts

The California Wine Club prides itself on only working with small family wineries. Why? Because they generally work the hardest, their land and grapevines are their pride and joy, and they’re free to produce varieties and blends worth drinking — in other words, they make wine that is approachable and interesting.

All gifts, from 1-12 shipments, include a personalized note at no extra charge. Gifts are available monthly, every other month, or quarterly. Order by June 7 for guaranteed delivery.

Want to Upgrade? (crate and bubbly offers can’t be combined)

Wooden Crate. Give a gift of at least two months and use code CRATE to have the first shipment presented in a wooden crate.

Bonus Bubbly. Gift a gift of three months or longer and Dad will get a bonus bottle of sparkling wine in his first shipment.

Upgrade to Gift+ to give Dad a nice gift before the first shipment of wine arrives. Will ship 2 business days after you order via US Priority Mail. $19 additional.

Chock full of benefits, a membership at The California Wine Club has a lot to offer. They offer "Love It" Guarantee will replace any bottle the customer doesn’t love, provide a personal wine consultant, and produce the full-color magazine highlight the wines in each shipment. Coupled with even more benefits, this the best value wine club in its class.

Want to spoil him a little more? The California Wine Club offers two premium wine clubs, a Pacific Northwest club, and an International Club, too.

Where the first wine club on this is about California wine, this one has a global perspective. Sometimes California wines are included, but wines I recently tried include a Portuguese white blend, a South African Chenin Blanc, and a Cabernet Franc from Argentina. They really go out of their way to source wine most Americans will find unusual, but only from reliable producers respected for quality.

Why Dad will love it: Most of the wine selected by the International Wine of the Month Club isn’t widely distributed in the US. These refined selections are chosen by a multi-tiered tasting panel of professionals and wine club members and they’re sure to please most wine lovers.

Gift details: All gifts, from 2-12 shipments, include a personalized note at no extra charge. Gifts are available monthly, every other month, or quarterly. Bottles in the first shipment come wrapped in reusable organza wine bags.

A unique feature of this wine club gift is the ability to pay as you go. You can plan to give a gift of 2+ months and only pay when the wine ships each month. They do not offer one-time gifts.

If you want it to start sometime other than "immediately," you can choose a month for shipments to begin — in case Dad is traveling in June and won’t be home to receive a wine shipment.

Last minute? You can customize a letter to print or email to your Dad so he has something to open on Father’s Day.

More options: The International Wine of the Month Club is one part of the Monthly Clubs line-up. In addition to four different wine clubs, they also offer a bunch of other high-end monthly clubs. These include: several subscriptions for beer, two cheese subscriptions, two chocolate subscriptions, a floral bouquet subscription, and two hand-rolled cigar subscriptions. You can Design Your Own Club by combining any and all of these into a custom subscription gift with their somewhat-easy-to-use online tool.

I recently tried a new shipment of wines after they reformulated the club around a single price point (previously there were two) and I loved every wine I received. I haven’t posted my wine reviews yet, but the shipment included a cherry-driven 2019 Minervois (French red), the first Amarone I’ve ever liked, an impeccable high-altitude Malbec from Argentina, and killer Chilean Pinot Noir, a spectacular Sauternes, and the first port I’ve ever liked — a 20 Year Old Tawny in a beautiful bottle. The main takeaway here is that the wine is worth the somewhat lofty $300 per 6-bottle shipment price tag.

When Wine Access launched the gift version of their wine club program I did a little dance. These wines are a splurge, which is something we often don’t do for ourselves but would happily do for Dad (or Mom, or anyone we love who loves wine).

Decanter Magazine — a high-end wine magazine in the UK — partnered with Wine Access to create this wine subscription. The magazine’s editors work with the WA team to choose wines they’ve featured and want people to try (only the ones WA can actually purchase enough of for the membership make it to the club).

I have had the pleasure of trying many wines from SomMailier (16), and even though I don’t always love red French wine, I found each interesting and distinctive. Some highlights include: his very popular Le Fleur des Pins white Bordeaux blend from Graves, a 2016 Cab-dominant red blend from Graves in Bordeaux, a Chardonnay from Arbois in Jura, a traditional red Rhône blend from Lirac, and a Corsican Vermentino.

Choose three, six, or twelve bottle shipments delivered quarterly. Gifts include detailed cards about the wines and a fun gift box.

SomMailier comes with a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and an exclusive wine tour of Laurent’s family’s wineries in Bordeaux if Dad is heading that way.

Laurent runs on a narrow profit margin, keeping the costs as low as he can, because he believes Americans need to taste these exceptional French wines from small producers that otherwise wouldn’t get their wines to the US.

I go into great detail in my review of each of her wine clubs, but the main takeaway based on what I have tried so far is this: enjoy high quality wine from serious wine regions. Whether it’s a classic Northern Rhône Syrah, a Beaujolais Gamay Noir, or a Vintage Sparkling Wine made in the Traditional Method but from native Italian Nerello Mascalese, each bottle is worth it.

Genna doesn’t have pre-paid gift subscriptions in her rotation yet, so you have two choices: join the subscription on behalf of your dad or send him an electronic gift card. I strongly recommend the six-bottle Red & Sparkling Club to get all of her monthly selections. The six-bottle membership is $190 per shipment (and the three-bottle membership is $100).

Pour Me Wines is unique among wine clubs because it’s not run by an industry professional. This means she’s not paying attention to the hype, she’s not overly concerned with centuries-old reputations and other status markers, she’s not following winemaker pedigrees — she’s just selecting a diverse variety of great wine she wants to drink herself.