Best Merlot Wine Clubs 2022

Winc is such a success because it homes in on the most popular varietals like Merlot yet digs deep to find the most creative, quality expressions of each grape. It has a select range of 100 wines from around the world and many a splendid vintage from its home state of California. Less is more could be Winc’s mantra!

This club’s golden selling point is its enduring connections with vibrant independent winemakers who make bespoke wines for the club’s subscribers. Wines include anything from fine quirky single-vineyard offerings to classic blends. Quality is the feature that unites them.

Your shipments are tailored to your precise taste profile which is honed the minute you join up. You answer six questions about your wine loves and Winc’s sommeliers get to work on pulling together a delivery that will make your palate pirouette. Your ongoing ratings ensure each shipment just gets better.

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Have you ever had the experience of waiting with anticipation for your wine club shipment, tasting your bottles, and discovering there’s nothing that you’d want another glass of let alone another delivery? Vinebox knows there’s nothing worse for a wine lover so they’ve come up with something really smart. This club sends you nine glass-sized samples in each quarterly shipment for you to nose, swirl, and sip before deciding if you want more.

These tasting samples come from chief wine regions and only feature classic styles. There’ll be nothing experimental, just the season’s latest classic styles

Everything is fresh thanks to cutting-edge fractioning technology plus you get comprehensive tasting notes to enhance your drinking experience. When you hit on something that floats your boat, Vinebox will do its best to get a full bottle for you paid for with credits you accrue with each shipment. Who knows, it might be a Merlot!

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Second-generation owner Paul Kalemkiarian personally undertakes hundreds of tastings every month and is super fussy about what he passes for his diverse range of membership packages. A connoisseur and very loyal to subscribers, you can be confident that you’re getting the cream of the crop.

To keep things interesting, Wine of the Month Club sends you one red and one white and makes an effort to cover both domestic and international wineries to please your palate. A typical shipment might include a classic from California and a fine Merlot from France or Italy.

This club has been selecting and shipping great wines for so long it knows inside out what its members want. Its list of subscription packages covers everything you’ve dreamt of and it keeps it fresh with new additions to the portfolio. Your shipments come with a 14-page newsletter describing what you have in your glass and how to pair it perfectly.

Naked Wines let you taste hundreds of wines while busily churning out perfect shipments and polishing its cool, compact range of membership packages.

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First Leaf gets one thing right immediately. Before hitting the “join” button, members answer a short questionnaire that gives First Leaf a front-row seat to what you like. Is it a tropical-fruit style of Sauvignon Blanc, a sweet Champagne, or a Merlot-dominant Bordeaux? Your preferences are stored in its nifty secure data bank and First Leaf delivers the types and styles you want in every shipment. You rate everything as you sip, calibrating your next delivery to be even more personalized – and so on.

This club sends its experts out into the world and they only come back with booty that has silver and gold labels on it. This team samples over 100,000 wines from every major region, grass-roots producers, and big châteaux. It’s so picky it only gives the seal of approval to 2% of all they taste so you know you’re sipping something exceptional.

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Being a member of Wine Insiders is like having your own sommelier traveling around the world and coming home with eye-wateringly good reds and whites. You always get top-quality, creative wines at great prices.

Wine Insiders go that little bit further by throwing in complimentary wine accessory gifts to make opening and serving slick and easy. When you hit your second delivery, it’ll send you a free Connoisseur’s Deluxe 7-Piece Lever Pull Corkscrew Set all nicely packaged in a cherry wood box.

You have the option of a mixed case of reds and whites or going for a full shipment of one or the other. This means you can stock up on whites for the summer and change over to those winter-warming reds like Merlot when the fall arrives.

Tasting notes come with every bottle for a deep dive into how they get those toasty notes or fine mousse.

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If you want a club with some of the best reach in the industry, WSJ Wine is the way to go. Its web of first-rate contacts crisscrossing vineyards all over the world enables it to bring the finest, the latest, and the most exclusive to its members.

Wines from world-famous regions in its shipments are a given but it also gets hold of limited-edition products which really raise the bar on the quality and variety fronts. The reasons for this are simple: firstly, its team of specialists know good things are found at big and small chateaux and, secondly, they leave no stone unturned during their tasting expeditions!

You get to rate each of your purchases so your preferences on the body, color, tannins, and all those other good things are noted, and each shipment reflects your tastes to a T. This is a sure-fire way of getting you closer to that mind-blowing Merlot.

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The esteemed International Wine Challenge and 700,000 people can’t both be wrong. The former bestowed on Laithwaites the “Merchant of the Year” award and the latter is the sum of this club’s vast membership. This club is obviously doing something right and it’s probably its fabulously finicky approach to sourcing wine.

Laithwaites’ huge subscription base gives it the fuel to search the world and deliver unique varietals, blends, and styles. Wine fans who enjoy the classics can also be sure of a shipment brimming with the best of the rest. This club’s north star when hunting for reds and whites is its customers’ tastes.

Mix and match your cases with an eclectic blend of reds and whites or go for one type in the knowledge that whatever you select, the wines will all be gems. Tasting notes come with every bottle which make a great tool for developing your sensibilities about what you enjoy.

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Each of the six subscription packages in the Gold Medal Wine Club’s portfolio is dripping with one-of-a-kind, beauties that have garnered accolades from the upper echelons of the wine world.

If you like exciting creativity, the Garagista Club is right up your street while the Platinum Club delivers top-rated goodies including many 100-pointers. It’s like this club knows what kind of subscription you want before you do, leaving you with the tough but enjoyable decision of which one to go for.

In between shipments, you can slide to another package if you see something else that takes your fancy. You can be a wild Garagista this time and an ice-cool Platinum taster next month. The club’s flexibility extends to deliveries too with shipments sent to your vacation spot when you’re out of town. It’ll do the same if you’re working hard on a business trip.

Imagine you’re sitting back with feet up, listening to your favorite public radio station and swirling something good from the Rhône Valley, Mendoza, or Tuscany. Go one step further and picture every sip you take bolstering the very radio programming that you love.

This is what the NPR Wine Club gives you the chance to do with every quarterly shipment that comes your way. Members enjoy an impressive range of wines from famous regions, clock up fantastic savings, and still earmark a portion of their subscription fee to support public radio.

Every shipment features educational materials that describe the regions where your wines come from plus in-depth tasting notes. These insights add an extra shine to knowledge connoisseurs already possess and provide a great learning resource to newbies. You also receive useful pointers on how to serve and sip properly which will impress your friends and family no end.

Vinesse positions itself firmly in the vast territory between mass-produced products and high-cost vintages, mining it for all it’s worth to dig out premier reds, whites, and rosés.

Additionally, it works hand-in-hand with award-winning winemakers to produce great bespoke reds and whites for its house range. While partnerships extend around the globe, California is a chief focus for this club.

It has plenty to offer experienced subscribers with its numerous memberships. Vinesse also prides itself on helping newcomers gain confidence in their wine knowledge, likes, and dislikes. All bottles come with tasting notes and food pairing ideas.

With flexibility on the number of bottles you can opt for in each shipment as well as delivery frequency, you can go at a pace that suits you and always have the right amount of wine at home. There’s the flexibility to change packages and frequencies with a few clicks of your mouse.