People care more about where their produce comes from these days, and that includes wine. You might not think wine can be organic or perhaps you think it all is; in fact, all organic wine wears this badge of honor proudly.
| Written by Lucie Robson Updated on November 18, 2021 |
Winc takes our top spot for the best organic wine club around. It offers the best selection as well as the greatest variety when it comes down to customization. That being said, there are plenty of great clubs out there. |
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More people are choosing fresh and locally grown produce and other food products that are free of additives and pesticides. Many individuals want to consume organic wine but are left confused with complex terminology and labels.
Of course, the first thing you want to look for in a club is that it actually sells organic wine. But other important factors to consider are the price, whether they can ship to your location, reliable customer service, and much more.
We’ve done all the hard work for you, putting together a list of the best organic wine clubs out right now. Whether first place or last, each one gets a mention for good reason.
Since it opened its doors in 2012, Winc has brought the best artisanal producers of California wine country and fanatic oenophiles together in a celebration of unique reds and whites. Its portfolio brims with products from small, passionate winemakers from the Golden State and other iconic regions.
If buying organic goods is important to you, you’ll love Winc. This club has a wide and interesting selection of organic vintages that is updated regularly so things never get dull. White varietals include much-loved Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc while reds include elegant Cabernet Franc and fiery Tempranillo. All are made to stringent organic criteria.
When you join, you answer a short fun questionnaire that produces a refined assessment of what you tastes are and your shipments are tailored to this. You also get a $20 discount off the cost of your first case and if you refer a friend, Winc will credit you with $30 for a little spending spree.
You can learn everything you need to about Winc by reading our in-depth review here.
Are you sick of looking forward to your wine shipment only to find that its contents are nothing to write home about? If this sounds familiar, Vinebox is a club with your name on it. It sends you glass-sized samples of classic varietals and blends and you can go for a full bottle when you taste one that floats your boat.
Every quarter, a case of nine 100-ml servings of iconic varietals mostly from the famous European regions arrives on your doorstep and you nose and swirl your way through each at your leisure. This club’s tasters have tried 11,500 wines with only 1% making the grade so you’re getting top-quality. Vinebox uses state-of-the-art fractioning tech to keep contents bright and fresh so there are no worries about oxidation.
When you land a wine you enjoy, Vinebox will get hold of it for you and you pay with credits you’ve built up over previous deliveries.
See if Vinebox is the club for you here.
Each month, Wine of the Month Club tastes hundreds of reds, whites, rosés, and bubblies in its quest to find the best for your box.
In the business since 1972 and one of the originals, it has a range of ten 2-bottle clubs, and options for 6 and 12 bottle cases that touch on all that an oenophile wants. It even has a package for anyone who likes to go organic. With this membership, you’ll get the finest bottles made within organic and biodynamic framework. This means they’ve been produced in harmony with the local environment - plus they taste delicious!
Wine of the Month Club is dedicated to not only delivering the best but educating members about what they’re drinking. Each of your bottles arrives with a beautiful newsletter providing details of its origins, tasting notes, and food pairing ideas all aimed at deepening your enjoyment of what you’re swirling your glass.
Get the full picture of this wine club in our review.
When you’ve been featured in Wine Enthusiast's Top 40 Under 40 Tastemakers List plus received numerous other accolades for your visionary wine club, you know you’re onto something. Indeed, Etty Klein, founder of Plonk has hit the bullseye with her huge range of organic and biodynamic products that please your palate and the environment.
Etty’s team travels far and wide to handpick the best from artisanal producers in all the major regions. Your case is filled with bottles produced with natural methods that are kind to nature. This means no pesticides, acidifiers, artificial sugars, or alcohol enhancements. As well as covering favorite red and white varietals, Etty also digs out lesser-known grapes to add variety and the line-up changes each month so things don’t get stale.
Accompanying each of your bottles is a leaflet covering the tale from the vineyard to your glass plus tasting notes and lip-smacking ideas for food pairing.
Learn what our thoughts are on this natural wine provider here.
Dry Farm Wines sources the healthiest, cleanest, and finest-tasting out there and packages them all up for chic shipments. The cornerstone of this club is products that are low sugar and alcohol with none exceeding 12.5% ABV and many as low as 7%.
If you favor organic products, you’ll strike gold with Dry Farm Wines. All the Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays, Merlots, and sparkling wines in your case are made to strict natural, organic, and biodynamic criteria in the vineyard and the winery. Many are produced from old vines for better flavors and all are dry farmed (which is where this club’s name comes from) for more intensity. In the fermentation and aging processes, there’s little or no new oak in order to give the planet a break.
Every glass you sip expresses a distant terroir at its most unique which is what wine is all about. Cheers to that!
Interested? You can find out more in our review.
See what our expert reviewer thought about Vegan Wines when they tried this club for themselves.
Wine Insiders acts like a personal sommelier searching the Old and New Worlds for top-notch, artisanal products that keep your shelves stocked up. You won’t find any bottles in Wine Insiders’ portfolio anywhere else as they’re exclusive to the club – and you! It’s range of reds, whites, and bubblies have accrued 1,250 awards from leading international competitions and critics, but you benefit from huge savings because Wine Insiders avoids mark-ups.
To get the ball rolling, you get an impressive introductory delivery of 12 quality wines along with three bonus Bordeaux blends all for less than $90. Each bottle in the shipment comes with the lowdown on the producer, educational tasting notes, and inspiring food pairing suggestions for deeper enjoyment.
This club also likes to enhance your drinking experience with free gifts for pro-standard serving and storage. Your second shipment includes a complimentary 7-Piece Connoisseur's Deluxe Lever Pull Corkscrew Set.
Discover all that’s on offer and what our thoughts are on this club in our review.
Since 2008, WSJ Wine has been filling cases to the brim with classic, exclusive, and unique bottles that cover all the grapes, styles, and regions every oenophile loves. One of the first bulk bottle clubs, it does this by effortlessly tapping into a far-reaching network across both boutique family wineries and famed houses.
When you sign up to WSJ Wine, you get a great introductory offer that gives you a taste of things to come. The club sends you 12 premium bottles and a bonus service gift for $69.99. If you enjoy this shipment, there are two clubs you can go for: The Discovery Club dozen-bottle-case shipments are packed with wines with consistently high ratings from fellow members and the Premier Club which boasts exciting limited-editions and top award winners.
Each of your bottles comes with tasting notes and tasty recipe suggestions for perfect food pairing.
Get more information WSJ Wine by having a read of our in-depth analysis.
One of the biggest and oldest clubs, Lathwaites started in the UK and spread across the US and Australia, picking up 700,000 loyal members along the way. Its top team of wine experts keeps an eagle eye on the changing trends of its members tastes and travels the globe to hand source the finest and the most unique bottles in response.
Laithwaites tasters try thousands of reds, whites, and sparklings each year. Only a handful make the grade in a selection that features all of the major regions and styles. Much-loved iconic varietals rub shoulders with lesser-known grapes that, who knows, may become your future favorites.
With its years in the business, Laithwaites knows that swirling and sipping is enhanced by a little education. In each shipment, it includes fascinating background stories on the origins of your bottles plus tasting notes and delicious ideas for food pairing.
See if Laithwaites is right for you here.
News first and then wine, or the other way around? Either way, NPR’s wine club is a
If you love wine and are a firm supporter of public radio, the NPR Club is an ideal choice for you. You support your favorite media with a cut of your club subscription and get great wines in return. Somehow, it manages to do this while keeping your subs incredibly low, so everyone's a winner.
You have the option of 6 or 12-bottle shipments which cover iconic Old and New World regions like France, Italy, Argentina, and other areas that every oenophile loves. You can expect all of the timeless varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Malbec with some bottles featuring the names of popular NPR shows on their labels for fun.
Newbies will appreciate the good range and high quality while more seasoned drinkers will discover new much-loved wines. Each shipment comes with in-depth tasting notes that deepen your understanding of what you’re enjoying along with creative and doable ideas on food pairing.
Learn about pricing, variety, and much more in our review.
Organic wines are made from grapes grown using techniques that are pure and protect the ecosystem around the vineyard. For a wine to be labeled ‘certified organic’, it can’t have any added sulfites or non-organic elements included in the winemaking process.
It’s important to note that just because a wine is organic it doesn’t mean that there are no additives involved. Yeast, egg whites, and animal enzymes are allowed to be added. Yes, this means that wines are rarely vegan.
Biodynamic winemaking is an agricultural practice that dates back nearly a century. Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner founded the method in the 1920s and it revolves around a complex astrological calendar.
Each day of the farming process coincides with one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The days are organized into fruit days, root days, leaf days, and flower days. Fruit days are preferable for grape harvesting, root days for pruning, and leaf days for watering. On flower days, the vineyard is left untouched.
Depending on where you are in the world, there are different categories of organic wine. In the United States, there are two different categories; those that are certified by the USDA and those made with organic grapes.
Wines that are USDA certified follow strict regulations. The grapes must be grown without any use of synthetic fertilizers, and all ingredients included must also be certified organic. There are no sulfites allowed to be added. You can identify these bottles by a USDA seal.
For a wine to have a label with the phrase ‘made with organic grapes’, the additional products don’t have to be natural, but the grapes must be produced without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. The wine must be bottled in an organic facility, and the sulfites must be limited to 100 parts per million or less.
Canadian standards resemble those in the US, though more sulfites could be added to extend shelf-life. In Europe, winemakers were allowed to label bottles as “organic wine” starting in 2012. The difference between these wines and those produced in the US is that there are more sulfites allowed.
If you’ve ever been searching for this type of wine, you’ve probably noticed two standard labels. Some wines are ‘organic’, and others have a say on the bottle that they're ‘made with organically grown grapes’.
If the latter is the case, it means that there were no pesticides or synthetics used in the vineyard for producing the grapes. That said, additives like sulfates may have been included in the winemaking process.
For a wine to be certified, it must not only be made of organic grapes, but it also has to be free of any added sulfites or non-organic elements.
Sulfates, otherwise known as Sulfur Dioxide or SO2, are used in many products that we regularly consume. The purpose of sulfites is to prevent spoilage and browning. Many conventional wines contain added sulfites, especially wines that are imported from great distances.
A common misconception is that there’s such a thing as sulfite-free wine. In reality, sulfites are a naturally occurring by-product of fermenting grapes. They occur in low amounts during the process, but some winemakers add synthetic sulfites to retain flavor, extend shelf-life, and control bacteria.
Sulfites are also blamed for the headaches that some people get after drinking wine, though there’s no scientific evidence to back up this connection. Dried fruits and juices have much more sulfites than any wine. However, for wine to be certified, it can’t contain any added sulfites.
Since the standards vary depending on where it’s coming from, it can be hard to identify precisely how natural your ‘organic wine’ is. European and Canadian wines may have more sulfites than those from the US.
USDA certified organic wines don’t have any sulfates, which reduces its shelf life and can impact flavor.
If a wine isn’t organic, that means that there are various chemicals and additives involved in the production. It’s common for vineyards to use pesticides and fungicides in areas of the world that have a lot of moisture in the air. In the bottling of the wine, it’s typical for winemakers to add elements like sulfur and something called Mega Purple.
Biodynamic wines are typically considered organic because the grapes are grown in a very natural way. These wines don’t incorporate any synthetic chemicals in the winemaking process and no additives are allowed. Sulfites are permitted, so depending on the country, biodynamic wines aren’t certified organic.
Buying wine that’s free of harmful ingredients doesn’t mean that you have to settle for a loss in quality. In this section, we’ll list a few of the best organic wine options available today.
If you’re a fan of bubbly, you must try the Robert Barbichon Réserve 4 Cépages Brut Champagne 2017. This champagne is composed of 4 varietals, which is pretty rare. It’s made of 70% Pinot Noir, 10% Pinot Meunier, 10% chardonnay, and 10% Pinot Blanc. It’s dry, fresh, fruity, and sophisticated but juicy.
The 2018 Badger Mountain Riesling is at the top of our list for best organic white wine. It’s packed with exotic aromas of kiwi, lemongrass, and lime. It’s both deliciously crisp and perfectly acidic.
Our favorite versatile organic red wine is from the vineyard of Domaine Bousquet. The 2018 Virgen Organic Red Blend is fully USDA certified. It’s a mix of 35% Malbec, 35% Pinot Noir, 30% Cabernet Franc, and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s very flavorful, and you can taste the pure expression of the foothills of the Andes, where this wine is made.
Many eco-friendly wine drinkers prefer to drink from the box, as it produces the lowest amount of greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste. Our favorite is From the Tank’s Vin Blanc. This 100% organic chardonnay is easy to drink and juicy.
