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Retail wine clubs often come under fire from the professional wine writers of the world—critics and bloggers alike—because most professionals feel they can get a better outcome by selecting a great local wine store and creating a relationship with one or more staff members, who will then get to know the wine pro’s preferences and make excellent recommendations.
We feel, that for the average consumer, creating a relationship with a knowledgeable staff member at a local wine store is uncomfortable, difficult, or not even possible if there isn’t a good store nearby. Instead, we took a closer look at how average consumers purchase wine today (97% of the wine that is purchased in the U.S. is not purchased by professionals), and how wine clubs might be a better way to buy.
After an extensive research process, we assembled a list of characteristics of wine clubs that we think really defines what it means to be a wine club—the additional value that makes wine clubs a meaningful alternative to buying wines “the old fashioned way.”
Below you'll find our Top 3 wine clubs by each feature we think is important. If you've already selected which state you're shipping the wine club to, your results reflect wine clubs that can ship to your location.
FYI: I find great wine deals so you don’t have to. To keep me on the hunt, I earn a commission when you buy wine based on my recommendations.
Wine Subscription Features: Satisfaction Guarantee · Convenience · Personalization · Wine Quality · Wine Price · Customer Service · Curation · Uniqueness · Tasting Notes & Supplemental Materials · Giftworthiness
NOTE: We rate wine guarantees offered by wine clubs. We do not provide our own guarantee.
When was the last time you bought a bottle of wine you didn't like, and could return it for a replacement from the store where you purchased it? Probably the 12th of Never.
A big perk of joining a wine club is the satisfaction guarantee. Each wine club who offers a guarantee approaches it a little differently. We've investigated each satisfaction guarantee to assess how good the guarantee really is and ranked each club accordingly.
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
by Wine Access
Ultra-premium and hard-to-find, this wine club focuses on small-production wines of distinct character and impeccable pedigree worthy of the name Connoisseur. These wines are great for special-occasions and discovery of the world’s best wine regions.
Next ClubConnoisseurs Club
A personalized wine club where your wines are individually chosen for you by a sommelier who gets to know your preferences. Your selections are chosen from the largest inventory of online wine available in the United States at Wine.com.
Next ClubPicked by Wine.com
We operate under the assumption that all wine clubs are more convenient than driving miles to the store to pick out wine and lug it around. But there are definitely features some wine clubs offer that make their clubs more convenient than others.
A top score in convenience means timely email notifications of shipping and billing, and online account management for vacation holds or cancellation. We also consider how easy the wine club makes it for you to track your shipment on delivery day or redirect shipments if you won't be home.
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
A personalized wine club where your wines are individually chosen for you by a sommelier who gets to know your preferences. Your selections are chosen from the largest inventory of online wine available in the United States at Wine.com.
Next ClubPicked by Wine.com
Wine Insiders, founded in 1982, generally offers a better quality of wine than their well-known competitors in their quarterly case (12 bottle) wine subscriptions. Coupled with convenience and an outstanding customer service record, I think this is a good choice for many wine drinkers.
Next ClubWine Insiders
Some wine clubs don't even offer the most basic of personalization, but some let you choose almost everything, including which wines are shipped. Personalization is not for everyone and this feature may not be important to you.
Common personalization options include choosing a red-only or a white-only version, different delivery frequencies, or different shipment sizes. Modern subscriptions have a varying degree of personalized wine selection or even let you pick all of your own wine.
The highest-scoring wine clubs in personalization are those that try to get to know your personal wine preferences or let you pick your own wine.
A personalized wine club where your wines are individually chosen for you by a sommelier who gets to know your preferences. Your selections are chosen from the largest inventory of online wine available in the United States at Wine.com.
Next ClubPicked by Wine.com
by WINC
Winc set out to change the wine industry by finding new ways to get better value to wine drinkers who spend less than $15 a bottle — and they’re succeeding. By delivering a broad range of wine which appeals to every palate, Winc is a standout wine of the month club.
Next ClubWinc Personalized Club
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
We believe there is a reasonable paradigm for what defines exceptional, good, average, and below average in terms of wine quality. We determine quality this way: the wine tastes like the grapes it is made of, the wine is balanced between acidity, alcohol, and tannins. The wine is not sweet if it's not supposed to be. The wine is not overly oaked. The wine has an appropriate amount of body for the grapes used.
We get shipments from nearly every club we review, and we taste every bottle. We then assess what quality of wine each club ships most often and rank them accordingly. This score changes as wine clubs try to improve their margins by decreasing the quality of wine or by hiring better wine buyers.
by Gold Medal Wine Club
This quarterly wine club features true luxury wines rated 93+ and finds California wines so exclusive that the club is limited to 500 members. You get collector-level access without the hassle of doing your own research. A lot of wines (and wine clubs) call themselves "super premium" but most of them fail to live up to the hype, this one does.
Next ClubDiamond Series
by The California Wine Club
This wine subscription focuses on high-end, small-production Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon that was perfectly cellared while it earned the status of Aged. All of these Cabs, from small family wineries in Napa, are ready to drink when they arrive. It is perfect to give as a gift or to join yourself. Past shipments have included both three-bottle horizontals and three-bottle verticals — a truly unique wine experience (more on this in the review).
Next ClubAged Cabernet Series
by Roscioli
An Italian wine club (based in Italy!) offering four different levels of Italian (and French) wine ranging from delightful everyday wine to legends meant for long-term cellaring. This is not an ordinary wine club.
Next ClubItalian Wine Club
You can pay $20 for an average bottle of wine, or you can pay $20 for a fantastic bottle of wine, but you won't know until you taste it which one you've got. That's why they invented QPR (quality-to-price ratio) to talk about wine pricing.
Our take on QPR is in our Wine Price rankings. This rating calls out which wine clubs are priced best — suggested retail price gets a rating of 3, while discounts off retail will get higher ratings, and markups above retail (not at all uncommon) get lower ratings.
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
by Roscioli
An Italian wine club (based in Italy!) offering four different levels of Italian (and French) wine ranging from delightful everyday wine to legends meant for long-term cellaring. This is not an ordinary wine club.
Next ClubItalian Wine Club
by Wine Access
Ultra-premium and hard-to-find, this wine club focuses on small-production wines of distinct character and impeccable pedigree worthy of the name Connoisseur. These wines are great for special-occasions and discovery of the world’s best wine regions.
Next ClubConnoisseurs Club
With wine clubs, the role of customer service is to help you deal with unusual circumstances: vacations, changes, returns, and cancellations.
Some clubs are infamously dreadful at some or all of these elements of customer service and are punished accordingly in our ratings system.
This is the most frequently changed ranking element for a company, as every complaint or compliment we get goes into the score.
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
by Wine Access
A surprisingly excellent wine subscription value. Wine Access, who manages this club for Sunset Magazine, has impeccable taste and a knack for finding wines of great value. The team applies these skills to their love of west coast wines, giving you one of the best six packs you’ll find at this price.
Next ClubSunset Wine Club
by The California Wine Club
This wine subscription focuses on good-quality, well-priced wines from small family wineries in California. It is perfect to give as a gift or to join yourself.
Next ClubCalifornia Premier Club
This detail is more important for premium wine clubs and those meant for collecting. We want to know who is picking the wine, what their wine selection philosophy is, and whether or not we think company is just buying what's available and fits their business model, or is actually buying based on what discriminating customers are expecting.
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
by Wine Access
A surprisingly excellent wine subscription value. Wine Access, who manages this club for Sunset Magazine, has impeccable taste and a knack for finding wines of great value. The team applies these skills to their love of west coast wines, giving you one of the best six packs you’ll find at this price.
Next ClubSunset Wine Club
by The California Wine Club
This wine subscription focuses on good-quality, well-priced wines from small family wineries in California. It is perfect to give as a gift or to join yourself.
Next ClubCalifornia Premier Club
Ideally you'd like to choose a wine club that brings something special to the table, whether that's through wine education, types of wines offered, or personalization.
We reward the wine clubs that are trying to deliver something more than a "standard two-bottle wine of the month club."
by Nakedwines.com
Naked Wines isn’t really a wine club the way you might think of one — it’s a personalized wine buying service that you pay into every month and then use those funds to purchase wines when you want to. It’s perfect for a wide variety of wine drinkers.
Next ClubNaked Wines
A personalized wine club where your wines are individually chosen for you by a sommelier who gets to know your preferences. Your selections are chosen from the largest inventory of online wine available in the United States at Wine.com.
Next ClubPicked by Wine.com
by SomMailier
A rare French wine club featuring affordable selections from a variety of wine regions within France. They tend to work with smaller producers offering either exceptional value or something unusual.
Next ClubSomMailier Wine Club
With some clubs you get a boring 8.5" x 11" piece of paper printed off the office inkjet that includes information you could easily find at the wineries website if you looked. Others put together elaborate, high-quality booklets each month which talk about the wine, the winemaker, the region, offer recipes for pairing, and even trivia.
We prefer tasting notes that tell us useful things about how the wine tastes (so we know what to pair with it), how to cellar it, how it was made, who made it, and geeky details about the vineyard, harvest, and vinification.
by Roscioli
An Italian wine club (based in Italy!) offering four different levels of Italian (and French) wine ranging from delightful everyday wine to legends meant for long-term cellaring. This is not an ordinary wine club.
Next ClubItalian Wine Club
by Wine Access
Sommeliers choose the best wines available that are typically hard to find. Surprisingly affordable, these selections are then further curated into a wine club. Exclusive video tasting notes round out the quarterly deliveries.
Next ClubDiscovery Wine Club
by Wine Access
A surprisingly excellent wine subscription value. Wine Access, who manages this club for Sunset Magazine, has impeccable taste and a knack for finding wines of great value. The team applies these skills to their love of west coast wines, giving you one of the best six packs you’ll find at this price.
Next ClubSunset Wine Club
When evaluating giftworthiness, we look at the gift packaging the wine arrives in (if any), the options for announcing your gift, and whether or not pre-paid memberships are offered.
This characteristic is not included in the All-Around wine club rating at Wine Club Reviews. We only use it for our Gift Giving profile.
by Wine Access
A surprisingly excellent wine subscription value. Wine Access, who manages this club for Sunset Magazine, has impeccable taste and a knack for finding wines of great value. The team applies these skills to their love of west coast wines, giving you one of the best six packs you’ll find at this price.
Next ClubSunset Wine Club
by The California Wine Club
This wine subscription focuses on good-quality, well-priced wines from small family wineries in California. It is perfect to give as a gift or to join yourself.
Next ClubCalifornia Premier Club
by The California Wine Club
This wine subscription focuses on high-end, small-production wines from small family wineries in California. It is perfect to give as a gift or to join yourself.
Next ClubHigh-End California Club
Want to see wine clubs suited to you?
Step 1: Select a state
Step 2: Consider gift presentation
Step 3: Consider wine selection
Step 4: Consider your gift budget
Bonus: Wine club gift FAQ
In this article:
Are wine clubs worth it?
Which wine clubs are a good value
How to save even more
Which wine clubs are not a good value
Why you should let experts pick your wine
Top reasons to join a wine club
How do wine clubs work?
What types of wine clubs are there?
What is the best wine club to join?
Review by: Jessyca Frederick |
After 15+ years trying 1000s of bottles from 100+ different wine clubs, I know what it means to be a wine club worth joining. My reviews can help you find a great wine club for you and the best wine club gifts for any budget and for any wine preference.
Feel free to ask me for a personal recommendation. I won't harvest your email address for a marketing list — I don't send marketing emails.
Learn more about my review process and why you can trust me.