Wine Club Reviews

Wine Club Reviews by an Industry Insider

Having owned and operated an online wine club for about a decade, I’m confident in saying that I understand the wine club game better than anyone else writing about it today. Here’s my list of the best wine clubs in existence today. Find the wine of the month club that’s right for you. Oh and I should mention, any of the wine club reviews you read here only get written after I have ordered and tried the wine. That’s only fair and it’s the only way to find out the most important part of this whole thing: who is delivered the best wine, at the best price?

The Best Wine Clubs: *Firstleaf *Naked Wines *Winc

Saving $$ On Your Wine Club *Use Rakuten For Free Wine

FirstLeaf Wine Club

Cost:$20 for 6 bottles with my coupon code

Why Join Today: Did I mention it’s $3.33 a bottle? In all seriousness, the intro offer from FirstLeaf is absolutely the best of its kind in the wine club game today. For about the price of a decent bottle of wine at the grocery store, you’ll get 6 bottles delivered to your front door. Plus when I ordered the shipping was so fast the wine showed up in less than 48 hours.

What You Really Get: High quality wine, from name brand wine regions delivered from a Napa/Sonoma based wine club. I found the wine quality with FirstLeaf to be extraordinarily high

What I Get You: A coupon code that delivers you wine for $20, saving you exactly 50% on top of their already generous initial order discount.

Read my FirstLeaf Wine Club Review

Naked Wines

Cost: About $75 for your first case(12 bottles) of wine

Why Join Today: More so than any other wine club, Naked Wines delivers wine made from real small production winemakers. The initial case offer, is quite good at just over $6 per bottle.

What You Really Get: So the wine club model for Naked Wines, is different than any other wine club I’ve ever seen. Really, a better way to think about Naked Wines, is to think about them, as a winery with winemakers spread throughout the globe. Your initial order functions normally, then winemakers are literally competing for your dollars within their wine club framework. It’s a unique setup because of the amount of

What I Get You: Who knows….as of now, nothing lol

Read my Naked Wines Review

Winc

Cost: About $40 for 4 bottles to start

Why Join Today: Winc was the first winery to use a new age setup, where they source wine from winemakers directly but bottle it themselves. I know a few folks that make wine for Winc, they have other full time jobs, as well as often having their own labels as well. The wine is quite good

What You Really Get:

What I Get You: absolutely nothing currently

Read my Winc Review

Gold Medal Wine Club

Cost: $40 + tax + shipping. My order came out to $58

Why Join Today: Do you want a solid wine club that you can order in about a minute and never have to think about, rate a wine or do any work?

What You Really Get: Two good bottles of wine, with no effort on your part. Gold Medal Wine Club is actually searching for small production, lesser known wineries which is easier said than done.

Wine Clubs That Didn’t Work For Me

When I first started this site, I told myself that I would have to occasionally write about a wine club, that didn’t work for me. I debated about how I would handle that when it happened because I really do have a few choices. First, like most review sites, I could paint a rosy picture, look on the bright side of things, or worse, outright lie. I didn’t like that concept. Second, I could simply omit the wine club that didn’t work for me. Given I’m actually paying for this wine, that didn’t seem like a good fit either, after all, the more content on this site, the more helpful it is for all of you reading it. Lastly, I could do what I’ve chosen to…..simply write it up the same way I have for the wine clubs that have worked for me. So here’s the wine clubs that I didn’t enjoy.

California Wine Club

Cost: $40 + Shipping (Aproximately $60) for 2 bottles of wine. Use my coupon code though and California Wine Club will give you two extra bottles of wine, for free.

What Went Wrong:So, it was bound to happen eventually, but we just didn’t enjoy the wine. I received two wines from two wineries because of my coupon code, but we just found the wine quality to be lower than that from other wine clubs. Shipping happened fast, but without a tracking number. Cancelling was also a pain because you have to email or call.

Read my entire California Wine Club Review and see what went wrong.

Wine Club Reviews FAQ

How I Review Wine Clubs: Shipping Timeframes: Fast is good. Slow is bad. Cancellation Policies: Easy is good. Not easy is bad. Wine Quality: Extras: Something? Just a little something please.

Wine Club Reviews: A Bit About Why I’m Here.

So yes, the full disclosure is simple, I ran one of these wine clubs for about a decade before closing down during the pandemic. I’ve done everything there is to do in the wine club space, I’ve built websites and set up software to handle orders with at least three different wine software providers, as well as building one on my own. I’ve written wine club newsletters, I’ve packed the monthly wine club boxes, dropped them off at UPS, GSO and Fedex. Heck, my oldest son helped pack boxes for a while when he was little and things were slow. I’ve handled the marketing of my wine club, both online and also in person, sometimes with interesting results.

So why not sell wine any longer? SCOTUS didn’t like my business model much (yes, they said so). But it was a fun industry and winemakers are a good group. That’s why you won’t read any crazy shade being thrown around at other wine clubs in this space. The wine of the month club industry is an interesting one and I figure, since I know some of these folks maybe I can help move the niche into a space that’s better for everyone. For me though, during Covid-19 I saw the wine industry changing. My wine club was really just a small retailer and too many small wineries that I knew and really liked were closing, unfortunately with my wine club business model there was nothing I could do to help. It was frustrating and I was no longer getting what I wanted to out of my business, so I changed.

So what do I want my wine club reviews to accomplish? To start, I won’t ever review a wine club that I haven’t tried their wine. That would simply be wrong and that’s not how reviews should work.

I’ll use this site to push for a few things that I know consumers (ie, you!) want. People want to be able to cancel their wine club more easily. They want better wine. They want their wine of the month club to ship faster and for the wine to show up more quickly. Ok, maybe that’s more easily said than done.

That’s probably enough for now. I hope you enjoy these wine club reviews.

From Our Blog: More Information on Our Wine Club Reviews