- If you’re looking to get wine delivered to your door, wine subscriptions can be a great contactless choice.
- Most will start with a quiz to learn about your preferences and have rating systems so you can curate your palate over time.
- After lots of taste testing, we’ve ranked Winc as the best overall wine subscription service for tasty and affordable wines you can enjoy anytime.
- Read more: The best wine glasses
This content is intended for readers 21+. Please drink responsibly. If you or anyone you know is dealing with alcohol abuse, get help. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) provides a free, confidential, 24/7, treatment referral, and information service.
With so many varietals and vineyards to choose from, it’s hard to determine if you prefer a Cabernet Franc to Cabernet Sauvignon without taste-testing both. And even then, there are so many regions to choose from. But just because you haven’t earned the distinction of being a sommelier doesn’t mean that you can’t pick a great wine.
Enter wine clubs.
Wine clubs have been around since the early 1970s. But in recent years, a few startups have started to personalize the process of buying wine even further, introducing quizzes and algorithms to better predict what kind of wine best suits your palate. That way, even those of us who know nothing about the art of alcohol can educate ourselves while sipping a glass.
We’ve tested multiple services to determine the best wine subscriptions to try.
Here are the best wine subscriptions:
- Best wine subscription overall: Winc
- Best for sampling: Vinebox
- Best for small-batch wines: NakedWines.com
- Best for customization: Bright Cellars
- Best for developing your taste: Firstleaf
- Best for organic wines: Plonk
Prices and details are accurate as of 8/14/20. We added NakedWines.com as the best for small-batch wines.
The best wine subscription overall
From the packaging to the bottles themselves, everything about Winc is elegant and sophisticated.
As the first personalized wine club, Winc is one of the older players in this relatively new game of wine subscription startups, and with age comes experience.
Formerly known as Club W, Winc has more than 70 types of wine sourced from vineyards around the world. Think of Winc as the digital version of your favorite wine store.
Rather than charging a flat rate per box, Winc's wines are priced per bottle, beginning at $13 and going up to $40. While each box comes with four bottles, you may never pay the same price twice. That said, you won't have to worry about shipping or handling, so the price you see is the price you get. By sourcing wines directly from vineyards, Winc is able to provide a more interesting selection at a lower cost.
To help you decide which wines are best for you, Winc starts off its process with a quiz that asks questions like how you take your coffee, whether or not you like earthy flavors, and how much you enjoy citrus. From there, you'll indicate if you want reds, whites, or a combination of both, and Winc will recommend the best bottles for you, your palate, and your budget. All of Winc's wines have extensive tasting notes and serving recommendations, which can be found online. If you're particularly fond of a certain bottle, you can check out what else Winc recommends from the same family.
A favorite of mine was Dime, a striking bottle with a simple name, but a rather surprising taste. With strong cherry notes and a deep earthiness, it felt as though this red blend was designed with my quiz in mind. Dime appears to be popular with a number of wine drinkers, scoring an average score of 89.8 on Cellar Tracker. I was also a fan of the Diviner Cabernet Sauvignon from the Santa Ynez Valley, which Winc's tasting notes describe as "rich but not opulent" and "generous and balanced."
You can read our full review of Winc here.
Pros: Fantastic wine selection, reasonable prices, fast delivery, thorough tasting notes
Cons: If you don't want to think at all about what wines you're getting, the sheer size of Winc's portfolio may feel a bit intimidating at first
The best wine subscription for sampling
Vinebox sends nine 3.3-ounce vials of wine quarterly so you can get a taste for them before buying a whole bottle.
Unlike other wine subscriptions that send you multiple bottles of wine to enjoy, Vinebox hopes to introduce you to new wines with small samples. Think of it as a way to test drive your wines before you commit to buying them. Vinebox doesn't send you a 750 mL bottle, but rather 10 centiliters in a rather attractive vial. It's enough for a glass, and enough to help you determine whether or not it's something you want more of.
The membership operates on a quarterly delivery system, through which you'll receive nine 3.3-ounce samples for $79 (though you get a $30 quarterly credit). Every three months, you'll get nine wines that are curated based on seasonality and interesting themes. Even though you'll be asked about your wine preferences, Vinebox will often throw in wildcards or wines that don't fit those preferences exactly, in the hopes that you'll discover something new and expand your horizons.
All wines come with tasting notes, recommendations, and pairings. And once you've finished tasting, if any particular wine stood out, you're welcome to buy the full-sized bottle.
The wines that Vinebox sends are already at the top of their game. The company notes that it has taste-tested 11,358 wines and has only allowed 1% of those to be sent to its customers, so rest assured that you're already sampling the cream of the crop.
You can read our full review of Vinebox here.
Pros: Healthy glass-sized pours, great wine selection, ability to buy a full-size bottle
Cons: The glass-sized pours might feel too small if you're hoping for more, at $8-$9 per 3.3-ounce glass, it's expensive
The best for small-batch wines
NakedWines.com operates like "Shark Tank" for independent winemakers. Each month, your $40 "angel investing" fee goes toward wines of your choice so you're getting the exact wine you want instead of leaving it up to an algorithm.
We debated whether NakedWines.com could be considered a wine subscription like the others here due to its unique set up. Even though bottles aren't shipped to your door on a recurring schedule, you're paying a monthly fee for wine of your choosing - which can be as regular or sporadic as you'd like.
NakedWines.com is like "Shark Tank" in which winemakers can propose a wine to be sold on the site and the site gives them an advance to make it. The advance is funded by "Angel" members, better known as you - customers who invest $40 every month into a wine bank account. The account is available for you to spend on wine - which is graciously discounted up to 60% off for members. Since it's not a traditional wine subscription, there are no regular shipments so you order bottles at your own pace. In our experience, it's much more convenient to buy a bottle or so regularly so we're never out and our investing fee don't stack up too much to the point where it feels like we're wasting money.
What sets NakedWines.com apart from the others is that the wine is unique and made in small batches from independent winemakers around the world. Our introductory boxes of red and white wine were all easy to drink, and they all seemed much more unique than others we've tried.
Similar to other wine clubs, you can rate the wine you buy so the algorithm can learn and recommend wines it thinks you'd like or steer you away from ones you don't like. Prices are also cheaper than other wine clubs here, and members can get up to 60% off the listed price, making the monthly $40 go a lot further.
You can read our full review here.
Pros: Unique small-batch wines from independent winemakers, wine is significantly discounted
Cons: No recurring shipments
The best wine box for customization
Bright Cellars relies on algorithms to match you to your favorite wines, so the longer you subscribe to the service, the better suited your wines are to your palate.
Bright Cellars has long pushed the fact that it was founded by two MIT graduates, and despite its relatively new entrance into the wine subscription industry (it's only been around since 2015), it's already made quite a name for itself.
The company gives you a fun but detailed quiz about preferences - what kind of chocolate you like, how you take your tea - to determine what wine suits you best.
Then, after you receive your four bottles per month, you rate them online, and Bright Cellars uses your feedback to determine which wines to send you next. The more you rate and the more you subscribe, the more likely it is that you'll be paired with a wine that's exactly up your alley.
Back in 2016, Bright Cellars began "matching the wine to our members," as co-founder and CEO Richard Yau said. Basically, that means that Bright Cellars began making its own wine known as Bright Cellars exclusives, which are meant to reflect customers' tastes.
Yau notes that most of Bright Cellars' drinkers are "moving up from Barefoot and Yellow Tail," which is to say that more veteran wine drinkers may not be thrilled by the options provided by Bright Cellars. While I wasn't disappointed by any of the wines I tried, I wasn't exactly excited by any of them, either. They were, however, easy to drink, and would've made great party favors that could be roundly enjoyed by a diverse group of folks.
Moreover, Wine Club Reviews noted that, as Bright Cellars promised, each subsequent shipment contained better and better wines (or at least, wines that matched their drinkers' tastes).
One of the most notable aspects of Bright Cellars is its Delight Guarantee. The company promises that if you're matched with a bottle you don't love, a Bright Cellars Wine Concierge will help you select a free replacement bottle in your next box.
If you're going with Bright Cellars, you might also consider a subscription to its sister company, The Tasting Board. This monthly cheese club also leverages a quiz to help determine what dairy products you'll like best, because what's a bottle of wine without a cheese plate? For $55, you'll get four cheese selections a month, and like the Bright Cellars guarantee, any cheese that doesn't match your palate will be replaced for free in next month's box.
Pros: Helpful wine concierge, algorithm-based wine selection, unique wines you can't find elsewhere
Cons: You may have to stick with Bright Cellars for a bit longer to really get the payoff
The best wine subscription for developing your taste
Firstleaf asks you to review the wines you've already tried so that it can keep improving its recommendations and evolve with your tastes.
Both you and wine get better with age, and so, too, does Firstleaf, a bargain wine club that truly wants to cater its selection of wines to your taste. The expert curators behind the company choose from a wide selection of red, white, and sparkling wines that are matched to your taste profile.
But don't worry - your taste profile isn't contingent upon a bunch of questions about whether you prefer corn flakes to bran flakes or how you take your coffee. Instead, the quiz asks simply if you'd rather go for red, white, or a mix and if you'd like a sparkling or rose thrown in, how many bottles you drink a month, and where you prefer your wine to come from.
Firstleaf then sends an introductory box of six wines for the truly unbeatable price of $6.65 plus tax. After the first shipment, each six-bottle box costs $90 plus $10 shipping.
Delivery was fast, and upon trying my first three wines, I was able to then review the options and have my taste profile updated. This way, you're actually able to give real-time feedback and ensure that each subsequent box is better.
To be fair, while the wines included in Firstleaf boxes are, as the company says, award-winning, these awards aren't necessarily agreed upon by the entirety of the wine community. That doesn't mean that the wines you're receiving are bad by any stretch of the imagination, but you won't necessarily want to invite your sommelier friends over to critique.
That said, many wine clubs tend to privilege value over taste, and given that these subscription services often cater to folks who are either just beginning to drink wine or looking for a hassle-free way to get a few bottles every month, they serve their purposes well. I enjoyed my three introductory wines (one white and two reds), and certainly would not object to getting a few more that are a bit more catered to my palate.
You can read our full review of Firstleaf here.
Pros: Each box gets better, good value, great customer service
Cons: No gifting option, some wines leave a bit to be desired
The best wine subscription for organic, unfiltered, and biodynamic wines
Plonk, which is British slang and diminutive for cheap white wine, and tongue-in-cheek in the case of this brand, offers natural, organic, and biodynamic wines either through a monthly subscription or its online shop (there's a two-bottle minimum at checkout).
We've had a couple of subscriptions that have included some organic wines, but none exactly dedicated to the category. If there's one type of wine that is at once interesting, exciting, fun, and surprising across the board, it is surely natural, organic, and biodynamic wine. With zero colorants, pesticides, acidifiers, artificial sugars, and other enhancements, these wines are free and wild to be themselves, if imperfect to the more "refined" palate.
Plonk Wine Club sources its wine from all over the world, made from too many different grape varieties to count, and the brand offers four and 12-bottle monthly subscriptions ($110-$285). You can opt to receive red wine, white wine, or a mix, and select a plan at increments of one, three, six, and twelve months, all of which include free shipping.
And, if you just want to try a particular bottle, you can order from Plonk's monthly selection, though there is a two-bottle minimum.
This is far from the cheapest wine subscription you'll find, but it's on the more thrilling side of what the wine world has to offer right now, in our humblest of opinions.
Our favorite so far? A bright, oh-so-slightly effervescent, unfiltered Sémillon from David Hill Vineyards in Oregon's Willamette Valley - one which we were able to track down and purchase again, if at a premium.
Pros: Only subscription club with an all-organic wine list, online store available if you want to avoid subscriptions
Cons: A little on the pricey side, but still cheaper than buying these wines per bottle, some wines might shock certain palates
What else we considered
Usual Wines: We've tried Usual Wines a couple of times now, and while their samples come in cute (but large) single-serve 6.3-ounce glasses, we aren't thrilled with the fact that there are no labels on the bottles. If you taste a wine that you want to try again, the only information you have is the varietal, the winery and/or vineyard location, and the date. In other words, it's not the most helpful service if you're looking to find brands you like, but you will get a general taste of the region.
Ninety + Cellars: While Ninety + Cellars didn't quite fit into any of our categories above, it is still a favorite and something of a Kirkland Signature for wine. Founder Kevin Mehra began calling vineyards in the aughts and seeing if they had wine for sale en masse. Over 10 years later and Ninety + carries wines from over ninety highly-rated cellars at a huge discount, not unlike what Costco's Kirkland does with distilleries, brewers, and wineries. What we really appreciate are the prices, but because Ninety + Cellars bottles and labels everything on their own, you'll never know exactly what it is you're drinking, should you care.
HelloFresh: HelloFresh seeks to be as non-intimidating as possible, both in terms of its meal kit recipes and its wines. Each delivery comes with six standard-sized bottles. If you go with the Mixed Wine plan, you'll normally end up with four reds and two whites.
All wines are meant to pair with a HelloFresh recipe, but they're also perfectly fine with the cheese plate you threw together as a quick appetizer for your dinner party. HelloFresh sends along an info sheet featuring tasting notes, as well as an email that makes fun suggestions around your wine and potential snack accompaniments.
Because all of these wines are specifically meant to be paired with HelloFresh's prepared meals, we find it a little limiting, and while it's a perfectly fine place to order your wine (especially if you happen to be ordering the brand's food, too), it doesn't seem to offer quite as much as other subscription services do.
Blue Apron: Blue Apron's 500 mL wines are just the right size to split with your partner over dinner. Like HelloFresh, Blue Apron started as a meal kit service, which means that its wines are meant to pair with its recipes.
Unlike HelloFresh, however, Blue Apron actually holds its own winery license, which means that it can cut out many of the middlemen that make the wine-buying process more expensive. In fact, six bottles will set you back $66 a month, including shipping, which means that each bottle works out to $11. The company also works alongside other winemakers, including Napa's Steve Matthiasson and Helen Keplinger, to bring a greater selection of wines to customers.
Since you can buy a lot of these full-size bottles for around the same price, some folks may prefer to just drive over to the liquor shop.
Check out our other wine-drinking guides
The best wine glasses you can buy
The size, shape, construction, and style of a wine glass can dramatically alter how the wine will taste. Find the best overall wine glasses for everyday use and different types of wine in this guide.
The best wine openers and corkscrews you can buy
There's nothing like a glass of wine after a long day, but getting into the bottle can be a hassle without a good wine opener or corkscrew. To get that cork out as easily as possible, you should get the best one around.