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It’s always a good idea to have multiple bottles of wine in your home. Like if you have company over and don’t know their taste preferences, or if you desperately need to unwind and the thought of having to leave your residence to go to the liquor store would be too exhausting to even consider. In addition to helping beginners build a cellar, these services are perfect for any wine novice looking to understand and expand their palate. It’s one of the reasons wine subscriptions are a thing.
It’s for this very reason that wine subscriptions also make for excellent (and last-minute) gifts — after all, you can never have too much of it, and who doesn’t like the idea of free alcohol delivered straight to your doorstep? From the discerning dad to the starter-apartment sister, it truly is the perfect gift to bestow upon anyone who partakes in their reds, whites or oranges.
Of course, you’ve likely been fed a few ads or maybe even know someone who subscribes to a company that delivers bottles of wine to their doorstep every month, but with so many delivery options and services floating around, which one would you gift? No need to fret — InsideHook is here to offer our sage advice.
Below are five wine brands that offer monthly subscriptions or wine club delivery services we think are worth your money. Oh, and the majority of these brands offer gift cards, so if you’re still holiday shopping, you could do worse.
Naked Wines
If you’re looking to support independent winemakers while sipping on some truly unique yet affordable wines you probably won’t find at your local liquor store, Naked Wines is the service for you. The 12-year-old company invests in over 150 indie winemakers and sells their high-end bottled wine for relatively cheap prices. When Naked Wines approves a wine, they’ll give the winemaker an advance to make the product. Part of the funding comes from ‘Angel’ members who ‘invest’ $40 every month. Members can then use that accrued credit on their wine orders from the site. So it’s like a traditional subscription service where you pay a recurring monthly rate, but also not quite.
While you’re not getting a box of wine automatically sent to your door every month, the site’s Angel members save 40-60% on their orders, plus they get other incentives like free samples.
Winc
One of the better-known and more affordable wine club memberships, Winc is ideal for the wine novice or the wine drinker who’s not a total snob. Because Winc makes “wine for the people, not the critics.”
The wine subscription service offers vino it produces itself — including the rosé beloved by Instagram influencers, “Summer Water” — but don’t let the virality of it all turn you away because we’ve tested a few of Winc’s wines and were pleasantly surprised. Again, I’m no wine expert, just a simple person who, when presented with a bottle of wine, will dutifully consume half, if not all, of it without blinking an eye. But my partner and I very much enjoyed the 2018 Rosa Obscura Red Blend that came in our subscription box, a light, semi-sweet and drinkable wine.
Mostly, though, I enjoyed the wine selection process. Before you sign up for a monthly membership, which starts at $30 for three bottles, you take a short quiz about your taste preferences, with questions like how you take your coffee, whether you prefer M&Ms or Skittles, and what regions you’re interested in trying wine from.
It’s an approachable wine club subscription that offers fun wines at a decent price.
Firstleaf
Like Winc, Firstleaf also offers a quiz to determine the bottles that’d best suit your taste. Here you can document your likes and dislikes, whether you fancy yourself a wine beginner or a connoisseur, etc. Once you join, Firstleaf will send a box of award-winning wines to your doorstep and let me tell you, I was fairly impressed with the selection I was sent. The company works with some of the world’s foremost wine producers, cutting out the middleman and saving Firstleaf members up to 60% off retail prices.
If you want more bang for your buck, Firstleaf is a no-brainer. You can get your first order, which includes six bottles of wine for just $40 plus free shipping, which translates to $6 a bottle. Thereafter, members will pay $13 a bottle. And like Winc, you’ll be able to rate the wines you’ve tried, so Firstleaf can get a better idea of what to send you next.
BOXT
BOXT is perfect for the drinker who cares about the environment and loves a heavy pour.
The female-founded, eco-friendly and celeb-favorite wine brand is an elevated version of your tried and true boxed wine (like if Franzia got a facelift ). Crafted in Napa, each box of fine wine contains the equivalent of four bottles and, unlike traditional bottles of vino, can stay fresh up to thirty days after opening.
BOXT offers nine profiles ranging from “bright, crisp, dry” white wine to “big, bold, smooth” red wine to “blush, crisp, floral, delicate” rosé — all wrapped up in 100% compostable boxes. You can buy BOXT’s wines á la Carte ($89 per box) or sign up for one of two subscription plans where you can save 20% on one or two boxes of wine each month plus free shipping and a personal wine concierge.
Usual Wines
Usual Wines hosts its delicious, all-natural wines in uniquely designed, single-serving bottles. It’s like the Keruig of wine.
The brand offers six-, 12-, 18- and t24-packs of their Brut, Rosé and Red bottles plus a mixed pack with the three flavors — all of which are sustainably farmed at California vineyards and include zero additives or chemicals.
It works out to be $8 a glass, and you can buy individual cases ranging from $48 to $192 — or subscribe and save 17% and get whatever quantity and flavor you want delivered to your door every month.
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