With so many different wine subscription services on the market today, it can be confusing when it comes to choosing the best option for you.
When I first started searching the market for remote wine clubs, I was very overwhelmed by the number of different business models and pricing structures.
This guide will break down all the different aspects of the Winc Wine Club in simple terms. In addition, our Winc Wine Club review will look at what you can expect when signing up as well as weigh the pros and cons of this wine delivery service.
What To Consider When Choosing a Wine Club
There are a number of different factors that you must take into account when deciding whether an online-based subscription wine service is right for you. Budget is one of the first things many customers consider, but other factors like reliability and delivery are sometimes overlooked.
It is also important to choose a wine club that features the types of wines that you enjoy, as certain subscriptions focus on specific wine styles or regions. There are also wine boxes meant to educate and introduce subscribers to new wines from around the world.
Wine clubs are best for people who are fairly serious wine enthusiasts, or just very curious about the world of wine. If you have access to a wine cooler, cellar, or any other temperature-controlled wine storage area – a wine club is likely a great fit for you.
Having access to an adequate wine storage area is one of the best ways to take advantage of the value and savings that online wine subscriptions have to offer, as extra bottles that will not be used for immediate consumption can be used to fill out the wine cooler for later.
Wine clubs are not the best fit for more casual wine enthusiasts who go through very small quantities of wine. Many casual drinkers find themselves with excess bottles after only a handful of deliveries, and oftentimes they cancel the service within six months.
Wine clubs are also not the best option for those with more selective palates who know that they only enjoy wine from certain regions or producers. If you are quite picky when it comes to wine style, then a wine club may not be a great fit as they tend to showcase lesser-known bottles.
Choosing the best wine club for you comes down to selecting a service that is comfortably within your budget and features the types of wine that you generally enjoy. It is also best practice to stick with established companies with good reputations for quality service.
The Basics of Winc Wine Club
Winc Wine Club was founded in 2012 with the intention of changing the way that people buy wine. In the last decade, Winc has quickly grown into one of the most prevalent and important companies in the industry due to its low prices and proprietary quizzing system.
When you sign up for a subscription to the Winc Wine Club, you are given a simple quiz that only contains five questions. Based on the way you answer these five simple questions regarding your tasting preferences, Winc sends you four bottles they think you’ll enjoy.
Once you have a chance to sample each bottle of wine, you fill out a rating survey to let Winc Wine Club know what you thought of their choices. Based on your feedback, they continue to refine selections as they better understand your palate and taste preferences.
This proprietary system of quizzing and rating is one of the main factors that sets Winc Wine Club apart from much of its competition. It is a great fit for casual wine enthusiasts who don’t quite know where to start when it comes to shopping for a bottle of wine.
Winc Wine Club Pros:
- Quizzing system helps pair you with the best possible wines
- Rating system helps to refine selections over time
- Access to unique bottles of wine from all over the world
- Ability to customize choices before each shipment
- Wine selections are reasonably priced and of high quality
Wine Wine Club Cons:
- No ability to receive money back, only Winc store credit
- No high-end selections from well-known producers
- Some customers would rather choose their own wines than being quizzed
Features and Benefits of Winc Wine Club
Winc Wine Club is a very popular service that has gained a large crowd of loyal followers for a variety of different reasons. They offer worldly wines from high-quality producers at an incredible value and use a unique system to pair people with great bottles of wine.
Price and Value
One of the biggest reasons that the Winc Wine Club has become so popular is the fact that it offers one of the best values and lowest prices of any wine subscription service on the market. It delivers four unique bottles of wine to customers every month at a low flat monthly rate.
For new customers, Winc offers an introductory special on first-time orders that includes four bottles of wine for only $29.95. The shipping cost is included in this introductory special, and the bottle price of under $8 each is hard to beat for quality wines.
After the introductory special, the monthly price of a Winc Wine Club box increases to $59.95. This increases the bottle price to around $15 each, which still represents a great value considering the worldly sourcing, quality wines, and included informational materials.
One important thing to consider is the fact that the shipping cost is not included with shipments after the introductory offer is over. This can change the math for some customers depending on location, so it is important to check with Winc how much delivery costs to your location.
There is also a ten percent discount that is applied to orders of 12 bottles or more. This seemingly modest discount can make a huge difference when ordering in bulk, especially in preparation for large parties or gatherings.
Another great way to save money with Winc is by ordering more than four bottles at a time, in which case the shipping cost is dropped from the order. This is a common practice by many Winc customers, as it is a great way to get more wine and save money.
Quality Wine Producers
Another major difference between Winc Wine Club and other services on the market is the fact that Winc produces all of its own wines in Santa Barbara, California. They source their grapes from all over the world and create both single varietal bottles and blends.
Winc is well regarded today as a wine producer of solid quality that “over delivers” on quality considering the low price tags. Making all of their own wines allows Winc to control every aspect of the winemaking process and keep up with quality control standards.
Winc also keeps up with current wine market trends and customer feedback to continually improve its wines. They have improved on a number of their different blends over the years by paying attention to user feedback.
Winc has also paid attention to certain dietary restrictions and preferences and has developed a number of wine styles specifically to appease its client base. This includes 100 percent vegan wines that are made without the use of any animal-derived fining agents.
They have also developed a line of zero-sugar wines that are great for customers with dietary restrictions. Many of these bone-dry wines are made using naturally sweet wine grapes that give them a sense of balance on the palate.
Natural wines are a recent phenomenon that has become particularly popular with younger wine enthusiasts. Young wine enthusiasts are the primary demographic that Winc caters to, so they recently released a line of minimal intervention natural wines.
Unique Quizzing and Rating System
The biggest feature that sets Winc Wine Club apart from the rest of the competition is its proprietary quizzing system that aims to match customers with the best possible wines for their particular palates.
This simple five-question quiz is easy enough to be fun and simple, but in-depth enough to give Winc the information needed to find the right wines for you. The quiz has improved in accuracy over time and will continue to do so as more customers give their feedback.
While the quizzing element of Winc Wine Club is a very important aspect, the rating system is an often forgotten feature that is integral to the entire pairing system. Customers give ratings after each shipment to let Winc know how they did and help refine selections.
The quizzing and reviewing systems work in tandem to improve the overall accuracy of the system, as the rating system lets Winc know how well the quiz is working and helps them to make future adjustments and improvements.
While the idea of a “quiz” may sound intimidating at first, many new wine drinkers and more casual enthusiasts have found that this system is far less intimidating and confusing when compared to reading complicated wine menus and dealing with potentially rude bartenders.
The Winc Wine Club rating and quizzing systems are a great way to introduce people to the world of wine and help them learn more about both the wine itself and their tasting preferences from the comfort of their own homes.
Highly Rated by Customers
Winc Wine Club is one of the most popular and highly rated online-based wine subscription services on the market, and it has received very high ratings from the majority of customers. Many customers are very loyal to Winc and are repeat buyers for years.
The Winc Wine Club currently has a 4.6 average score on Google reviews, with over one thousand reviews submitted. 80 percent of customers gave the service a five-star rating, and 11 percent rated it four stars.
Winc Wines has delivered over 18 million bottles of wine to happy customers all over the country, and the majority of its business comes from loyal repeat customers who continue to receive new wine shipments every month.
This is especially impressive when considering the fact that Winc Wine Club does not lock its customers into any long-term contracts, and there are also no recurring membership dues. It is also possible to cancel at any time, though most customers tend to stay with the service.
Wine Education Platform
Another interesting aspect of the Winc Wine Club is the educational materials that come included with each shipment. These informative cards help customers to better understand what they are drinking, leading to better informed and well-educated customers.
These educational and informational cards that come with each shipment give customers details on everything from which type of grapes are used, to where they were grown and which winemaking processes were used such as which type of oak is used for aging.
Tasting notes and food pairings are also included, which are tremendously helpful for new wine drinkers who are trying to establish their palates and recognize certain tasting notes in different wines. These tasting notes are one of the most important educational features of Winc.
The included food pairings are also extremely helpful for casual wine enthusiasts, as pairing the right types of food with certain styles of wine help to bring out the best in both the food and wine.
Establishing which wines pair well with which foods is a very helpful tool for novices.
Alternatives to Winc Wine Club
While Winc Wine Club is a fantastic option for newer wine enthusiasts who are looking to expand their palates and explore the world of wine, it is not the only wine subscription club on the market.
There are a variety of other services similar to Winc that have achieved success.
Firstleaf is one of the most similar services to Winc Wine Club on the market today, as it also uses a type of wine quiz to match customers with wines that are well suited to their palates. While the taste quizzing system is similar, there are a number of differences between them.
Firstleaf costs slightly more when compared to Winc Wine Club, but their shipments include six bottles of wine as opposed to four. Each shipment also includes informational cards that include things like tasting notes and proper food pairing for each bottle of wine.
WSJ Wine Club is one of the most well-established players in the remote wine subscription industry, and it introduced much of the United States to the concept of a “mail-in” wine club since its inception in 2008.
While the WSJ Wine Club represents a great value with one of the best introductory offers in the entire wine industry, it is a significantly larger wine subscription compared to Winc. WSJ includes a full case of 12 wines every three months instead of the four included in Winc.
Plonk Wine Club is one of the best choices for fans of natural and minimal intervention wines, as they provide a large catalog of different styles of wines from natural wine producers. They also have a large selection of organic and biodynamic wine selections.
This is a great service for more open-minded wine enthusiasts, as they feature many different unique wines from small producers that are made using less well-known grape varietals. There is no quizzing system, however, which is the part of Winc that many customers enjoy most.
Final Thoughts
Winc Wine Club is one of the most popular wine subscription services on the market that has changed the way that many casual wine enthusiasts shop for wine since its introduction in the year 2012.
It uses a proprietary system involving a simple five-question quiz that helps pair customers with bottles of wine that they are likely to enjoy.
Click here to take a look at the Winc Wine Club website and take a look at the wines they are currently showcasing!
