Are WINE Clubs GOOD???

If you love wine, you wanna learn, you wanna try new things, I suggest two things. You could start a tasting group with friends where everybody brings a bottle, you taste wines together. That means you can leverage each other to try a bunch of different things. Or if it's just you, your partner, or by yourself, I suggest you join a wine club. I've tasted wines from several wine clubs throughout the years. Once I tasted some from this multi-level marketing type scheme, the wines were absolutely awful. I tried Samselect before, even recommended them to a couple of people, but some of my friends weren't happy with the customer service. There's some great ones in Europe. And then there's one by Madeline from Wine Folly. I've known Madeline for a long time. She's a hardcore wine geek, but I'd never tasted the wines from her club, so I reached out and said, hey, I'd like to taste some, and we're gonna do that here today. I got sent a pack of six wines to review. This is not a sponsored video. I just was really curious about her selections. And ironically, in the six pack, there are four to five wines that I have ties to, and this is completely random. I've seen other wine clubs where you get little brochures, or you get information cards about the wine. Yeah, that's cool. But when you sign up for this wine club, there's a website, you go there, and the Wine Folly has tons of information on each wine, and even a dedicated video to each individual wine. In some of the videos, the producers are actually talking about the wine, which I think is really cool. That really separates it from other wine clubs I've seen so far. Let me taste the wines first before I give the final judgment. This is the top tier of her wine club, the six pack. It's 189 US dollars. I went through and I looked up all the individual prices of these wines. All of them range from 20 to $30. In total, these six wines added up to about $145, $150. That's not including tax or shipping. So that's a pretty darn good deal, especially when you see all the content that's involved, all the videos, all the planning. If you've never created content before, you have no idea how much goes into all of this. So I think that 30 bucks is well spent for extra information and for curation. A lot of people just want to drink something that's fun and delicious. Yes, wine geeks, wine pros might know where to buy certain things, but sometimes you have to order off separate websites. That means you have to pay quite a bit to ship just one or two bottles. This is all put together. I even asked Madeline of Wine Folly why she started this wine club. When we started Wine Folly, it was supposed to be a wine club. Oh, really? Yeah, so the vision was this. We're gonna go travel around the world. We're gonna get these wines together. We're gonna shoot video on site, and every single month you're gonna get bottles with videos that share the wine world to you in the mail. And that's how it started. In 2011, we were just shipping bottles out of my friend Chad's house. He literally had a liquor license application on his window in his house in his nice little neighborhood in Seattle. So we relaunched that concept more officially, gosh, maybe almost two years ago. It was an incredible amount of detail on the wines. We try to get all the fake facts and data. So if you're a numbers geek and you want to nerd out about a wine, you can look up the information. We get as much of the information as we can from the producer. So it's, for somebody who's a beginner or like wine interested, you can either just get the wines and enjoy them because they're good, or you can get the wines, enjoy them alongside of an educational experience. That's a snippet of a full podcast I did with Madeline. If it's out by the time this video releases, I'll pin it in the top comment. For those of you that don't know what Wine Folly is, it was started in 2011. There's two Wine Folly books. There's a lot of infographics, colorful pictures to help demystify, break down, make wine a little bit more simple and fun. I'm a big fan of what Madeline's been doing. I actually even applied to be her chief content creator years ago, way back during the pandemic. I'm glad it actually didn't work out because I can focus on my own thing. She gets some vitriol from the wine industry because she's young, bubbly, and fun, but I think she's doing amazing things. We have to make wine more fun for new drinkers. All right, let's taste some wines. When I opened this pack, I was really shocked to see how many wines I have ties to. This is completely random, including the first one. This is the Aurora Vineyard. It's produced by Constant Crush Wine in Oregon. This is Arnais, 2022 from the Chehelum Mountains AVA in the Willamette Valley. Arnais is a grape from Piemonte in Italy, usually Rero Bianco. That's what the main ingredient is. It's a variety that I think's interesting. I've never really been blown away by it, but the fun thing about this, one of the winemakers of this is Brie Stock, who's a master of wine. This is complete coincidence. When Brie finished her master of wine, she came to Georgia. I was there at the time. This was late 2015. One of her friends brought her over there. We visited a few wineries together, and during an evening downtown Tbilisi, we just got absolutely hammered. We had so many wines. We had this big feast. She was so much fun. I haven't seen her since then, but this is her wine, so let's see what it's like. I do like the wines from Rero in Piemonte in Italy. None of them have really blown me away. They're usually a little bit richer white wines, although I haven't found them to be super complex. Let's see how this one is. First of all, just tons of yellow peach-type flavors, a little bit of honey, kind of a beeswax-type note. The beeswax, I wonder if this has skin contact. I smell even a little bit of dried apricot peel, even. I know nothing about this one. I even get pine in it, too. It smells pretty interesting. It's not super intense on the nose, but it does smell pretty good. This definitely must have a little bit of skin contact. You get some of those dried fruit flavors on the palate, just a touch of tannins. I think this is actually a wonderful wine. It's not the most complex orange wine in the world, but it's delicious. I think what's cool about this is this has light maceration. It's not a full, heavy orange wine, where sometimes those wines can be a little bit too tannic for a lot of people. It's not the most complex orange wine in the world, but you do have some sweetness, the sweet, dried fruit flavors across the palate. It's not too astringent. I think this is exactly the point of this wine pilot club, to get people to try different things. I'm a hard 88 points on it. I think it's very good. It's delicious. Not blowing me away, but I think it's a great introduction to orange wines, and it's something worth seeking out. Pretty darn good, and good job, Bri, if you're watching. I'm gonna tag you. I haven't talked to you in a long time. Let's move on here, shall we? We have another white wine. This is the Carpanouche family winery, Tokaj Haslevelu from Hungary, 2022, imported by Rooted Selections. Nice little importer. I know Tokaj super well. Before the pandemic, I was going there multiple times a year, but I haven't been in a while, and I know this family a little bit, but not super well. Haslevelu is one of the six main grapes in Tokaj. Tokaj is known for creating one of the greatest wines in the world, sweet Tokaj Asu. In fact, in the 17th century, when it came to fine wine, it was really France, the Mosel in Germany for Rieslings, and Tokaj in the Austro-Hungarian Empire for its decadent sweet wines. Producers realized they have to start making dry wines, just like Sauternes in France. Formant is the main grape variety. However, formant, it's high in acid, which is great for Tokaj. When it's a little bit neutral, Haslevelu adds a little bit of a ginger flavor. You also have Chagat Muscatai, which is just yellow muscat, which is used, and then also grapes like Zenit, Kverselu, and Kabar, although Haslevelu, formant, yellow muscat, those are the most common ones. I personally love dry Haslevelus. I actually haven't had one in quite some time, so I'm excited to taste it. Got the nice screw cap. Don't be afraid of screw caps. I love them, especially for easy drinking wines. Tokaj has this cool bottle shape. Wines have to go through a blind tasting panel. They have the little Tokaj emblem on them. Not easy to find, but let's get tasting on this. It should be a fresh wine. If you are a mineral junkie, like love minerals, crushed rock, dry Tokajs are where it's at. It reminds me a lot of Sauvignere. If you're more geeky in the Loire Valley, this is just slate, slate, slate, a little bit of ginger shavings, although ginger can be pungent, so not super strong, but it does have some gingeriness to it. I love the mineral flavors. Almost like a sweet, green apple, Jolly Rancher type flavor. Maybe a touch of honey. It smells, if somebody smelled this, they actually might think it kind of resembles a Cabernet Riesling type of smell a little bit. Some lemon. Beautiful texture on the palate. It's a dry wine. There's a touch of residual sugar, because acid is so high, although ferment wines usually have more acidity. This is lovely. For those of you that follow my work, know that I was actually working on a Hungarian book. I launched a Kickstarter that failed publicly. I was a bit embarrassed by it, but I love Hungarian wines. I used to spend a lot of time in the country, so this is really bringing back a lot of memories, because I haven't had a dry Hoch Lavalue in a long time. This was a great pick, because dry Tokaj sometimes can be way too austere, way too sharp with the acidity, way too minerally for a lot of people. Maybe some people won't kind of score this high, but Tokaj holds a special place in my heart. It's one of my favorite regions in the world. It's one of my favorite wines in the world. I'm a hard 90 on this. I think it's a gorgeous wine, a great introduction to dry Tokaj. I really like that. Let's move on. I'm gonna switch glasses, because I just got this for another upcoming glass video. I'm really excited. This is a Spiegelau definition Bordeaux shape glass. The first one was a Gabriel glass standard edition, and because we're moving on to reds. Next up, another Hungarian wine. Two Hungarian wines in the shipment. Way to go, Madeline. This is the Sebastian Sexard Mosaic Bicover 2020. Bicover is bull's blood in Hungary. There was an old legend that when the Ottomans were attacking, the locals started drinking until they got drunk. Their eyes were all bloodshot, and they went down. The Ottomans were scared. They told the commanders, wow, those locals were drinking bull's blood. Bull's blood is based on Kek Frankos, also known as Blau Frankis, with some Kodarka. This also has Merlot Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon. Sebastian is an amazing small producer there. One of the owners, Chilla, actually worked in Michelin star restaurants in Ireland, I believe. I've actually judged with her on some tasting panels on Hungary before. This is one of my favorite producers in Hungary, especially for dry red wines. Not afraid of the screw cap. I like it for fresh wines. Bull's blood, Bicover, is honestly, and I'm not joking, one of my favorite red blends in the world. It's just, you can't find it much outside Hungary. When I used to stay in Hungary a lot, I would drink Bicovers all the time because they're fruity, yet they have this earthiness to them. It's almost, sometimes reminds me a little bit of Chianti Classico without the tannins. You can make Bicover in Szexart in the south of Hungary where it's a little bit warmer, a little bit bigger. My favorite region for red wine in Hungary. Then in the north, you have Eger where it's a little bit cooler, more mineral. Let's give it a taste. This is awesome. So graphite, I get a lot of earth. Capsule, again, it's a little bit more earthy than it is fruity. So if you like that kind of, like maybe almost a Loire, Cabernet Franc experience, that's what you're gonna get here. Pencil shavings, earth. It's got some cherry type flavors. Wood is very, there's like a hint of mocha, but it's not woody at all. This is a nice glass, by the way. Oh, the thing that separates Bicovers apart is because of the Kadarka. It's really spicy in the back end. You feel like a black pepper. There's not big time tannin, so it's not overly astringent. It's just delicious. Spicy, long. I think some people might want a little more fruit on the front end. Me, I'm perfectly fine with this. This is hard for me. I think I love, this is delicious as a type of red wine I drink. I'm gonna go 89 points on it. I didn't go 90 because I know what they're capable of and they're on top of the more expensive Bicovers and I know what Bicover is, so I guess I'm kind of judging it based on other Bicovers, but for people completely new to this style of wine, I think this is great. You're really gonna enjoy it. When I give Bicovers to people, they're medium bodied, they're juicy, they have a little bit of earth, they're spicy. That is good, though, really good. By the way, I wanna let you know I've started channel memberships, and in the second tier, the Grand Reserve level, I'll be doing a monthly live hangout tasting where Grand Reserve members can come on screen, we can talk about wine, we can share experiences. I'm really excited about that. If you wanna support the channel, even the basic level has some perks. I'm also launching some live podcasting series, and if you're a Grand Reserve member, you have the option of coming up on screen asking me or the guest a question. You can click the Join button or I'll pin a link in the comment below. I really appreciate it. Let's move on, shall we? Here we have the Bodega Tayanaste. Tayanaste Tinto Tradicional 2021 from the Canary Islands. This is made out of the grape Liston Negro. Very unique grape. There's a small chance, I'm filming this right now, it's almost June, there's a small chance I might be going to the Canary Islands in July. I haven't been there before, only seen pictures. Volcanic islands just off the coast of Africa, although technically they belong to Spain, just like in Santorini in Greece, they dig out some sand on the volcanoes and they grow vines in these baskets to protect them from the wind. I've generally been more impressed with whites from the Canary Islands than reds, although I'm looking forward to tasting this. This is brought in by David Bowler, great importer in New York, and this is a hot tip. If you like a wine, look at the back label, look at that importer, go to their website and try to find wines that they bring in because they'll probably share the similar taste. The David Bowler Big Portfolio Tasting in New York is awesome, I've been there before. Just a great book, so I'm looking forward to tasting this. I do like here, you're not just getting the same thing, look at, I mean, you have Arnais, Harslevelu, Abikofer, Kedarka, Kekfrenkos, Best, Listen Negro, that I would see is probably the biggest benefit of a wine club, opening a package and seeing what you get inside. I know me personally, I'm getting a lot of samples from producers and sometimes they send extra, and for me, it's almost like I'm more addicted to getting packages, to opening up and seeing what's inside. Okay, let's get started here. Okay, this smells like, literally smells like flint, chalk, almost like if you ever camped back in the day and you used those flint stones to try to start a fire, that's what it smells like here. Fiery and bright cherry flavors, really cherry. A little bit of rose petal, this smells super complex. Maybe I wasn't expecting much out of this grape and this wine. I mean, I guess David Bowler knows his stuff. This smells great. Cherry, earth, and again, spicy, not as spicy as the Abikofer. My only complaint here is it's so floral and explosive on the nose, but on the palate, the flavors aren't as explosive as the nose, but yet it's still really good. This is delicious, it has length. What I like about all these four wines so far, they're so drinkable. They're not wines that you need to cellar and put away. You can just pop them open right away. This is absolutely delicious. I'm a hard 90 on it. If the palate was closer to the nose, I'd just be going to ethereal levels, but this, the Abikofer, these are the type of red wines I wanna drink. Medium-bodied reds with some earthiness, some spiciness, some character. They are just fun wines. That is delicious, good choice. Next up, we have another wine I had ties to, Vina Thorthal from Navarra in Spain. Navarra is the province right next to the more famous Rioja. Vina Thorthal is the producer that you'll probably see on the market. However, the main varieties in Navarra are Garnacha and Tempranillo. This is Graciano, which is also used in Rioja, but just in small quantities. This is 100% Graciano. 2021, also brought in by David Bowler. I didn't know David Bowler was bringing it in. I was just at the estate last November. I tasted, I think, the 20 of this, and it was so funny. One of my friends there loved it. She took a bottle home. I was more high on their Garnachas than this, but we'll see here. In general, Graciano adds a little bit of color, a little bit of spice to Riojas. Let's give this a go here. Okay, Dark Cherry Chocolate Favors. This is for the bigger and bolder. These, the one from the Canary Islands and the Abikofer for Hungary were more medium-bodied. This, I think, is for more of the bigger, the bolder. Got some pine notes, dark cherry, chocolate. It just smells big. You also have these sagey. It's actually really complex. Much better than full-bodied. There's a spike of acidity. This is something you're gonna want grilled meats with. Technically think it might be the best wine out of the three reds I had so far. It's tannic, so there are some astringent sensations on the gums, but it's not overly big. It's not like you're doing bitter beer face. That's good. Hard 91 points on it. I don't remember that wine being so good. Christy, if you're watching, I understood why you took a bottle of that home. That's really nice, and I like here how they're all different, sometimes inexpensive red wines. They're kind of going through the motions. You get repetitive flavors, but everything, man, here I like is the reds. The whole selection's been pretty nice so far, especially that kind of price. Let's move on here. Grape that is my favorite red wine. Grape that you know it, too. It's Sangiovese. This is the Monte Bernardi Gioventu Sangiovese dell'Anima, so Sangiovese from an animal, so to speak. This is in a liter bottle, 2020. This is from Monte Bernardi, a fantastic producer of Chianti Classico in the village of Panzano, where the famous Fontoni is. Those labels are more classic. When I see labels for different wines like this, this reminds me, usually the younger generation, when they come in, they start taking over the winemaking responsibilities of an established brand. Their fathers, their grandfathers, say you gotta keep that line the same, but then the young person usually adds a new line up to the winery, and that's what I think happened here. I don't know that for a fact, but that's what I'm guessing. One liter bottle, Sangiovese. Grape you know I love. Let's give it a go. I'm hoping this is a fruitier style of Sangiovese, like a Rosso di Montalcino style. I love Sangiovese made in that style, but I still want it to be serious. I don't want it to be an afterthought. It's a little bit darker. Black cherry, earth, almost like a little bit of a wax component. Maybe a baked strawberry. I actually might think this is Grenache from the Southern Rhone. Blind, I don't think I could pick out Sangiovese. Let's see what's on the palate. Darker, denser. With Sangiovese, I usually prefer orange peel, bright sour cherry flavors. Again, this to me tastes more like a wine out of the Southern Rhone. What's the alcohol here? 14 and a half alcohol. It is bigger. Got some tannins, got some bite. To me, I'm 89 points on it. I think this is a wine you really need steak with. Something bigger. You need meats because it's so tannic. Get the bitterness here. Fans of the Southern Rhone are gonna like it. For Sangiovese, I wanted something a little bit brighter, so I was expecting something a little bit differently, but it was still a good wine. I like the selection here. A lot of diversity. The pros, I think, hey, you're getting a pack of wines and also you're getting all the information, the content behind it specifically for you. The cons, these are big time, age-worthy wines. These are more fun wines you want to enjoy now. So if you're a collector, maybe that's a con. You stick clear for it. But if you just wanna learn, you wanna have fun, you wanna enjoy good wines, you wanna try new grapes, this is for you. I know when I was learning about wine back in the day when I was in graduate school, granted I didn't have a ton of money back then, I would have loved something like this, especially with my friends who enjoyed wine, but we never really knew what to buy. So tell me, have you ever been part of a wine club before? What do you think? Drop your comments below.