Wine club questions

Greetings, my name is Jami, and I am a reporter for a national finance and lifestyle publication. I am doing some research on wine clubs, and received permission from one of the administrators (Robin) to come on here and ask a few questions.

Specifically, I am interested in wine-of-the-month clubs offered by shops, websites and other third parties--not wine clubs run by wineries themselves to sell directly to their fans. These include wine clubs named after newspapers, national organizations, celebrity chefs, etc.

1. Has anyone ever been in a situation where they enjoyed a bottle of wine from a wine club, tried to look it up to reorder it, and found out that they couldn't because it had been custom-produced for the wine club?

2. Has anyone ever encountered misleading labeling on wine from a wine club? For example, it sounded like it was from some under-the-radar winery, when in fact it wasn't?

3. Has anyone been a member of a wine club but had trouble finding out how the bottles were being chosen, or by whom?

Let me know if you've had any experiences like these! I would really appreciate your input.

About a decade ago, I joined one such wine club operating out of California. All their stuff was exclusive private labels not obtainable anywhere else. And, frankly, of passable to mediocre quality, and not worth trying to obtain anywhere else. I dropped the service at the first opportunity.

I don't know if my experience is typical. I do know it wasn't good.

-Paul W.

Jami,

I wish I could answer those questions for you but I've never joined one of these clubs because I don't believe that they bring anything to the table. Between these fine folks online, my retailers, and some reading into books and periodicals, I believe that I can source whatever wines I want and I'm not sure that the wine clubs would match our differences in taste and preference.

I'm looking forward to others response but assuming that I'm just looking at a venn diagram of "branded" wine clubs and wine enthusiast forums, I'm not sure that they would cross as much as you might believe or we might have expanded out of them and the experience might not be current.

Best of luck in your research.

Mike

Jami,
I belong to only one wine club (other than winery-associated ones), the Prima (a very good retail shop in WalnutCreek) IlConsorzia club.
Experience has been nothing but positive. Know the guy who makes the selections. Always been able to reorder and it's uusually
the cheapest price around.
I know a number of people who belong to some of the wine clubs (like WallStJournal, NYTimes, etc) and really like the wines. But their
tastes are pretty plebian. Part of the attraction is getting wine that no one else can, I suspect.
I've looked at the offerings from a number of Calif wine clubs who (alledgedly) offer exclusive/botique wines that only they can get.
They're mostly a sham. Private/made-up/fictional labels that they are supplied by bulk wine producers. Oftentimes, they have
an AmericanCanyon address....FredFranzia. Same as 2$Chuck.
Tom

[Jenise]

Jami, adding to what others have said, I've been part of this forum for over ten years and I recall a number of instances where relative wine-newbies joined to ask questions about wines they assumed we would know about but did not. (And "we", in this case, is a pretty sophisticated bunch of afficionados.) Well, of course the reason we were unfamiliar with the wine that was supposed to be so fantastic was usually some private label slapped on what was likely bulk juice that had been sold through a club. We were sometimes able to trace the wine to prove the point--usually because we felt sorry for people get conned like that--but of course in most of those situations there was no point because it was obvious that the person asking really wasn't looking for the truth. As Tom said, most had fairly plebian tastes and enjoyed the literature that came with the wines that made them feel part of something exclusive.

But we haven't had one of those inquiries in a long time--I'm guessing that the relative ease with which one can buy better wine these days has made most of those clubs obsolete.

But maybe not. I get offers monthly for a "club" offered by my Alaskan Airlines VISA card--always unknown labels of course.

Other than winery associated clubs, I've only been a member of one eclectic club in the past. It was really more of a retail operation than a club. The operator called once a month and made some offers along the lines and price points I enjoyed. If I didn't like anything he was offering, I could opt out for that month. The only time I had a problem reordering was when a winery discontiued making a certain wine. Didn't encounter any of the other problems.

Private labels, talk about a major issue with a few of my competitors and partly the bane of my existence lol.

Without sharing too much information that I can't substantiate, if you dig in the right places you'll notice that at least 1 of the 10 largest 3rd party wine clubs is actually owned by a winery that is private labeling everything and slapping a different label on each month. I am a bit jealous of their ability to ship 140 cases a month though.

We're new in the business, but are trying to do things the right way when it comes to wine clubs. We won't ever do a private label and take the wine that we ship seriously. I'm happy to help answer questions if you need someone that runs a wine club to answer questions.

Best of luck, it's certainly an interesting industry and one that has changed dramatically over the past couple of years.

I'm checking my assumptions and trying to determine if a wine club I belong to is just not measuring up in customer service. They will take a month or more to ship wine after they have charged my credit card. I have had to call them to remind them to ship my wine, sometimes they tell me "UPS is coming tomorrow" and yet I get nothing for three weeks. It's not weather-related - I know that can be a factor. The other wine clubs (also small wineries) I belong to ship within two weeks of billing me. I just got called "mean and angry" by one of the owners of this wine club I am writing about because I asked her why the wine hadn't been shipped yet and to give me some information about my shipment. This is the third time this has happened and I will not continue my membership with them. I'm just looking for some perspective here. What are the norms regarding billing and shipping with wine clubs?

"Mean and angry"...tell them you will be looking elsewhere.

[Jenise]

Lisa, I definitely think they're not measuring up in service. It's absurd to charge consumers weeks in advance of shipping ANY product. I believe that consumer laws in some states, in fact, won't allow it.

Lisa, I definitely think they're not measuring up in service. It's absurd to charge consumers weeks in advance of shipping ANY product. I believe that consumer laws in some states, in fact, won't allow it.

My former wine club used to bill me 2-3 weeks in advance before the wine was shipped. Interestingly, while the wine club was in California, the wine was shipped from New York. It was probably an east coast distribution center and I suspect they billed me when the wine left California (they probably would make a bulk shipment to NY for distribution on the east coast).

This plus other questionable practices led me to abandon them and focus on finding wine at a good local wine retailer.