The Best Wine Subscription Clubs in 2021
Have you been considering a wine club membership that brings bottles to your front door? Let’s look at the best wine club delivery options.
Winc Gets Personal
One of the most popular wine clubs is also one of the best, both in terms of price and selection. Plus Winc consistently gets high marks for its ability to personalize your pours. When you sign up you get a questionnaire that quizzes you on your different taste preferences, asking about your leanings on things like coffee, citrus, and salt. With the results, Winc tries to match different vintages to your palate. And with each bottle, you can give feedback to help them even further fine-tune the choices of wine you'll receive. And the prices? Starting at $13 a bottle and going up it's one of the more affordable wine subscriptions you can find.
Martha Stewart for Budget-Friendly Bottles
You might think that Martha Stewart gets fancy about fine wine, but the prices of the selections in her wine club are surprisingly low. With a six-week plan for $50 and an eight-week plan for $90, prices for individual bottles work out to less than $9 each. It’s hard to find a better bargain! The club claims that Martha personally selects each bottle they offer. That might sound hard to believe, but we’ve seen that Martha is not shy about publicly showing her affinity for cocktails. Along with the fine wine, you get some of Martha's trademark tips on food pairing, serving suggestions, and guides for entertaining with wine.
Affordability With Wine Awake
Another of the more affordable options, Wine Awake consistently offers vintages that range from 20% to 40% less than retail prices. You can get four bottles per month for $45, so you’ll pay just over $11 per bottle. And don't worry that you'll be getting bad wine for such a low price. Wine Awake sources vintages from around the world, with a focus on lesser-known regions, brands, and varietals that offer quality beyond what their price tags suggest.
Bright Cellars for a Curated Plan
At $20 a bottle—four per month with the $80 plan—Bright Cellars isn't the cheapest wine club you can find. But they might be the most data-driven wine subscription you’ll encounter, using a scoring system with 18 attributes that was developed by two MIT grads. Your initial preferences about things including candy and tea go into creating your first curated wine list. Then your reviews of wines you’ve sampled further refine your preferences for your next order.
Firstleaf for Flexibility
Like other wine clubs, Firstleaf starts things off with a quiz to gauge your preferences. The prices are usually better than what you would pay going retail—their six-bottle monthly plan costs $90, breaking down to $15 per bottle. Firstleaf’s single-bottle prices are usually about $20 each. The wine club gets extra points for flexibility, allowing you to schedule different delivery frequencies, swap out your selections, and even put your account indefinitely on hold without having to cancel your membership.
Sipping for Two With Blue Apron
As Blue Apron began as a service for delivering meals, the company is a natural fit for finding wine to go with food. Indeed, each bottle comes with pairing tips. And instead of the traditional 750ml wine bottles, Blue Apron delivers 500ml bottles—which are better sized for sharing over meals for two. You can combine your subscription with Blue Apron’s food delivery service or just opt for the wine alone. The $65.99 monthly plan works out to just over $10 each for six mini-bottles. They also have twelve-bottle plans at varying prices.
Orange Glou for Eclectic Wine Experiences
Not everyone is a fan of orange wine, made by fermenting the grape skins and seeds in with the juice. The result is a bold orange-colored vintage that has both its rabid fans and its detractors. And orange wine isn't always easy to find, making this niche subscription truly unique. You do pay a little more for the privilege of receiving orange wine from Orange Glou, with a three-bottle plan that costs $105 and a six-bottle option that costs $195.
Cellar 503 for Going Organic
Offering some of the best vintages the Pacific Northwest has to offer, Cellar 503 (Portland's area code) sources its wine from 21 wine-producing regions in and around Oregon. Pinot Noir from the area has a well-earned reputation as some of the world's finest. Many of Cellar 503's wines come from boutique vineyards that produce fewer than 2,000 cases a year, and many of those producers offer organic wines that are hard to find outside of Oregon. As for pricing, you can figure on about $25 a bottle, with reds priced slightly higher than whites.
One of the top wine clubs online may be your best bet for expanding the wines in your world. Your wine club membership could be just a few clicks away.
Written by William McCleary for Knockaround.