A wine cabinet like no other
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A wine society subscription is your ticket into the society of wine collectors who refuse to overpay for their wine.
We can all admit that surprise packages, which the subscription economy used to reach masses are not for everyone. If you are one of those who spend every other weekend in wine cellars in Slovenian Goriska Brda, the Italian Tuscany, the French Provence, and other wine-growing regions, a monthly box of bottles with top wines may not really be what you are dreaming of. But for other wine lovers, this subscription model is maybe just what they were always looking for.
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Don’t think that this is some kind of an exceptional novelty. Wine lover clubs which regularly supply their members with bottles of wine have existed for quite some time.
Paul Kalemkiarian, a pharmacist and a sommelier, dreamt about life per month with a full wine cabinet over five decades ago. He turned his dreams into a reality in 1972, when he sold his pharmacies, opened a wine shop in the Californian city of Palos Verdes Estates, and established the Wine of the Month Club.
Initially, he chose one white and one red wine each month as a recommendation for his customers. Satisfied customers soon wished that the Wine of the Month Club would deliver a selection of wines to their home every month.
The Wine Society is a club for wine lovers that connects more than 120,000 active members. They spend over a million pounds on wine - a week!
This is how the first subscription model in the wine industry was born. But this time, we are presenting one of its upgrades - The Wine Society. The British Wine Club is significantly older than its American cousin, since it was founded in 1874 as the first in the world.
But the journey from a unique cooperative model, in which each club member owns one share, to one of the most successful subscription models has been over a century long. Today, according to Wikipedia, The Wine Society has more than 120,000 active members who spend more than one million pounds on wine every week.
The ticket to the world of good wines - in the selection of more than 1500 wines from 23 countries - is not excessively expensive. A one-time membership fee and thus co-ownership in the cooperative, costs 40 pounds; or 20 pounds, which is the discount on the first order.
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Members of the elite club can take part in wine tasting, and they can buy wines without limitations online. The wines are carefully selected by eight world-famous sommeliers, which the Wine Society claims to have »some of the best noses in the wine business«. Perhaps the most interesting are various subscriptions to packages with premium wines.
If you are thrilled with the idea of regular delivery of wines to your doorstep, you only have to answer one key question - with what kind of wine do I want to fill my wine cabinet?
There is something for everyone in the Wine Society subscription packages, whether you are a lover of white or red wines, more accessible vintages, or prestigious rarities.
The Wine Society subscription packages are roughly divided into two large groups: wine for everyone or Wine Without Fuss, and premium wines of selected vintages or Vintage Cellar Plan.
In the first group, club members or customers decide on the frequency of the wine deliveries - every two or three months, but it can also be more or less often. They pay for every box delivered. Each box includes 12 bottles. If they decide for a box of red or white wine, they receive six different wines, two bottles of each. If they want a mixed box, they get 12 different wines - six bottles of red and the same amount of white. Prices of boxes in different packages vary from around ten pounds to up to 149 pounds for French classics.
The latter brings us elegantly to the Vintage Cellar Plan subscription group. Four boxes per year with six classic French good vintages will cost you 55 pounds a month, while you will pay 200 pounds a month for eight boxes of rarer vintages of better quality. This is also the most expensive subscription fee for the Wine Society, where, for example, four boxes per year with six world classics cost 45 pounds per month.
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Possibilities truly are countless. Have you already run out of space for your wine? The Wine Society also takes care of this and offers its members storage space in their wine cellars.
Do you feel like the subscription economy is tailor-made (also) for the wine business?