Wine Clubs Reviews

The Times is very, very new to the wine club game and as you might expect they have started offering a wine club in order to help their bottom line as the newspaper industry is in a severe restriction.

Their lower level club runs $90 for 6 bottles including shipping, which does give the consumer a good introduction to wine. That being said, most, if not all of these wines are commercially available at your local wine or grocery store so there isn't a need to pay for shipping.

Recently we decided to take a look at what the wine club had charged their customers for in relation to the pricing available as a whole on the market.

Kellerei Andrian ‘Andrius’ Sauvignon Blanc
Price: Estimate around $20.  Does not seem to be commercially available within the United States, which begs the question: Is it because it is a bad wine, or is the distributor just doing a bad job?



Pahlmeyer Jayson Chardonnay
$34 per bottle
A good value here rated in the 90 point range by many major publications...however I do question why they have included a fact that "Most of the fruit is from Napa"  If 75% or more of the fruit was from Napa, they would be able to use the Napa designation, they are only, by law, allowed to use the California designation.  Better to be 100% honest NY Times!



Poderi Aldo Conterno Conca Tre Pile Barbera
Price: $35 per bottle. 90 points from the wine advocate gives a generally nice value here.  It's a smaller Italian producer that is little known within the USA which is interesting to be sure.



John Duvall ‘Entity’ Shiraz
Price $23 per bottle. Parker gave the previous vintage from this famous Aussie winemaker 94 points, so clearly this is going to be a good value here....that being said this wine is widely commercially available across the USA and again I wonder why someone chooses to pay for shipping if they don't have to.



Vilafonté Series M Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Cabernet Franc
Price:$40.  Really the first bottle on their list that I would be very, very excited to receive.  This has limited availability within the USA.  This winery in South Africa produces only about 1200 cases a year and prices for previous vintages have increased as supplies have dwindled.


Copain ‘Tous Ensemble’ Pinot Noir
Price $25.  Copain is really one of my favorite wineries, I understand the inclination to feature them as part of your wine club.  All of their Tous Essambles line are incredibly well priced.


Overall review of the NY Times wine club.  They are doing a pretty good job, as with most wine clubs I usually want to know who is picking the wine and why it was selected.  Some of the international additions to this shipment seem to be there simply based on price. That being said you are paying $180 and getting $177 worth of wine....so if you want to support the Times and don't mind paying extra for shipping.....go for it.

The Uncorked Ventures Wine Club is perhaps the newest wine club in the industry. While they have an introductory club that focuses on introducing customers to wine from different regions of the world as well as different varietals of wine, their strength is certainly their top 2 clubs. Both their Special and Reserve Selection clubs focus entirely on wine from California, Oregon and Washington state. With their goal of visiting wineries in person and networking with smaller producers, they are able to provide wine which are not generally available at your local wine store.

We looked at their first Reserve Selections shipment to attempt to judge the value they are delivering on a price of $195.

Audelssa Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon:

Price: $80 Min Bid at Auction, none currently for sale to the public.  Audelssa is a small winery on Mt. Veeder in Sonoma, CA that Robert Parker has said is a winery he should spend more time with,  Additionally locals in the Bay Area have called it the best winery in Sonoma,  Looks like an outstanding club offering here.

The second bottle they shipped was a vineyard 29 Aida Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon.  Again, an extremely difficult bottle to find although K & L has a few of these at their Bay Area locations, prices range from $100-$120.

Overall, it's hard to argue when you receive two bottles of wine that are valued, at least $10-$30 more then you paid for them when you only have paid retail prices through a wine club.  This is outstanding value.