The Best Wine Clubs

This club is an offering from Wine Folly, a popular wine education brand whose founders authored a James Beard Award–winning guide to wine. The club’s quality reflects that prestige; they offer expert-selected wines in shipments designed to teach subscribers about the entire winemaking process, from grape growing to tasting. We were impressed by this club’s responsiveness, attention to detail, and sense of fun—a quality often absent in the stiff wine industry. We also enjoyed and learned a lot from the club’s educational videos; each wine was accompanied by an individual video exploring the wine’s region, vineyard, and other processing information. The club automatically monitors users’ local weather and pauses shipments as necessary to protect the wine, with clear communication to subscribers throughout the shipping process. The wine impressed tasters as well. They were drawn to the “bright, lean . . . acidity” and “green apple” and “floral” notes of the Wagner Stempel Weissburgunder, and enjoyed the “pleasingly earthy and fruity” flavors reminiscent of “blackcurrant” and “dark cocoa” in the Château La Roque Pic Saint Loup Rouge 2021.

One of several clubs offered by Wine Access, the Discovery Club prioritizes global wine education by employing a Master Sommelier and an international wine judge to select wines that will broaden subscribers’ palates and wine knowledge. We liked that we could choose between reds, whites, or a mix of both. We were also impressed by Wine Access’s responsive customer service and meticulous shipping policies, which included zip code-specific weather monitoring to ensure our wine wasn’t delivered in extreme temperatures. Each wine in the shipment was accompanied by a one-pager that included information about the wine’s regional origin, vineyard-specific growing and processing practices, serving instructions, food pairings, and more. Tasters enjoyed our shipment’s wine offerings, praising the “faintly honeyed, soft tropical fruit” notes of the Domaine Cailhol Gautran Villa Lucia Blanc. They also appreciated the Château Gardat Bordeaux’s “bright red cherry flavor with a hint of dried herbs.”

SommSelect is true to its name; the wines in the Explore 4 subscription are selected by sommeliers each month to match a different regional theme. This allows subscribers to dive deep into a region and compare distinct wines from different vineyards. Our shipment’s in-depth exploration of the famous Bordeaux region of France was supported by a beautifully designed magazine outlining each wine’s origins and processing details. Tasters liked the wines, praising in particular the 2015 Château Aney’s “well-balanced and complex” flavors of “ripe, plummy fruit, dried rose, cedar, and sandalwood.” One wine in our shipment unfortunately had succumbed to cork taint, a rare form of wine spoilage that’s only discoverable after bottling. One expert taster noted this was “not indicative of quality, just bad luck.” The club gave us a credit for the tainted bottle when we called them about it. While we were generally impressed with the quality of the wine and educational materials this club offered, it was difficult to reach them by phone, and their email responses were occasionally vague and auto-generated.

We found this service’s online quiz, which asked us about popular wine brands to help assess our palates, to be the most effective among the non-sommelier-selected clubs. We were also impressed by the ability to change the size of our boxes and choose a specific number of reds, whites, or rosés. This club’s online shipping scheduler was helpful in choosing a delivery date that worked for us. Still, we preferred services that didn’t put the onus on us to keep an eye on the weather for safe delivery. Tasters’ perceptions of this club’s private-label wines were mixed. They lauded the Posted Accord Chenin Blanc’s “full-flavored” and “pleasant” hints of “crisp apple” and “nectarine,” but noted their disappointment with the La Belle France Bordeaux’s “very flat” touches of “metallic flavor on the palate [that] leads to some baking space on the finish.” We did enjoy the in-depth, descriptive one-pagers about each wine included in the shipment.

This private-label wine club offers subscribers “credits” they can use to customize the contents of their monthly boxes. After a brief quiz assessing our preferences, this service recommended several bottles that we could replace with other Bright Cellars exclusives if we wanted. Online descriptions of the wines were beautifully designed and inviting but didn’t offer as much in-depth information as those from other services. These flashy yet somewhat hollow efforts toward education were mirrored in the beautifully designed yet scanty wine flashcards included in the shipment. Tasters mostly liked the wines, praising the Sprig and Rose Pinot Grigio’s “zippy and bright" flavor tinged with "apricot and lime" and the Worst Evils Malbec’s “earthy, mushroomy” hints with a “blackberry finish.” Customer service agents replied promptly but didn’t provide in-depth answers when we asked about proper storage. We also felt that greater care was taken by other clubs when scheduling shipments.

This club, run by a popular wineseller with shops in multiple cities, sent us delicious, sommelier-selected wines boxed enticingly. Tasters mostly enjoyed the Les Deux Moulins Sauvignon Blanc, noting its “overt tropical note—passionfruit and guava.” They also liked the No Fine Print Cabernet, applauding its balanced flavor with hints of “cherry and raspberry” that faded to “mushroom and tobacco.” Unfortunately, this club’s meager educational materials and paltry online information made it hard to learn more about the wines we received, especially since there was no online record of the contents of each shipment. If we failed to save the small flashcard accompanying the shipment (or the empty bottles), there would be no way to easily remember what we had previously tasted. While customer service representatives were responsive, the club wasn’t proactive about communicating shipping delays or holding shipments due to weather. They invited customers to message or call them directly instead of preempting confusion with clear messages that took care of things for us.

Winc’s algorithmic preferences quiz was brief, impersonal, and devoid of nuance—we didn’t feel like wine experts had our backs here as they did in other clubs. That trend continued in all our customer service interactions. Representatives were slow to answer questions, and the site often had maintenance issues, including one day when we were totally unable to access our profile due to a faulty password reset function. An exciting email blast promoting a behind-the-scenes look at Winc’s private-label process led to a broken webpage that has yet to be rerouted, a knock against transparency. Digital-only descriptions of the wines in our box were helpful but not as in-depth as those from other clubs. As for the wine, tasters struggled to find a bottle they all enjoyed, noting that the Chop Shop Cabernet was “characterless yet inoffensive,” and the Les Hauts De Lagarde‌ White Blend was “poorly structured,” with a weak “fruity” flavor that left “a lot to be desired, especially from such an iconic region.”