If you’re searching for a subscription that offers membership plans for organic and biodynamic labels, Plonk is the best wine club for you. Its range includes well-known grapes and lesser-known varietals, and it has a great choice of bottle counts and shipping frequencies.
Plonk Overview
Plonk is an award-winning club that showcases the finestboutiqueorganic and biodynamic reds, whites, rosés, and sparklings from across Old and New World wine regions.
What is Plonk
Plonk has received numerous accolades across the wine media for its fine, healthy, and delicious range of wines and membership plans. It represents a sound option for wine lovers who enjoy the health and environmental benefits that come with labels produced through organic and biodynamic methods. Shipping is free for all plans plus the club has a satisfaction guarantee in place if you’re unhappy with anything you receive. It’s a tad costly but that’s because organic and biodynamic wines are usually more expensive to produce.
How Does Plonk work?
Plonk’s USP is its focus on small-batch production organic and biodynamic wines from all over the globe. As well as sourcing labels from the world regions we all know and love, Plonk is dedicated to going off the beaten track to bring members exciting, unknown grape varieties that are indigenous to untapped areas. This keeps your shipments super-interesting. When you sign up to Plonk, you have a choice of all reds, all whites, or a changing selection of reds, whites, rosé, and bubbly. Once you decide on the club theme, you have a choice of bottle counts with four, six, or 12 available. It’s worth noting that the four-bottle count is only available on a monthly basis and six bottles monthly and bi-monthly. If you go for 12 bottles, you have the choice of monthly, every second month, or quarterly. Plonk also offers two types of payment options. You can go for shipment-to-shipment payment with a recurring subscription or pay in three, six, or 12 shipments in advance.
How Much Does Plonk cost?
Our Rating 4/5
Plonk undoubtedly offers a niche wine product and the convenience of finding everything under one roof. Even so, it's a touch more expensive than similar ranges in other clubs so the score for price is 4.
There’s a choice of three wine clubs with Plonk: all red, all white, or mixed. The costs for each club are the same across bottle count and shipping frequency. Four bottles cost $110, six bottles clock in at $160, and 12 at $285 per shipment.
About the Wine
Our Rating 5/5
The wine Plonk sources it simply amazing. Its experts hand select top quality wines made from popular and lesser known grapes in every major wine region. If I could give it 6, I would but it's a 5.
Plonk hand selects top-quality organic and biodynamic wine from artisanal wineries in every corner of the globe offering a diverse selection to subscribers. The club is big on adding new producers to its list for variety so labels are always changing but you can expect the likes of the following:
Vorspannhof Mayr
This Austrian winery is located along the Danube in the top wine region Kremstal in Niederösterreich where it has been cultivating vines for 500 years. It produces regional classics Gruner Veltliner, Riesling, and Zweigelt.
Bodegas Neleman
Found in the Valencia region of Spain, this winery focuses on local grape varieties and implements dry farming, organic, and biodynamic farming methods for its super-pure range.
El Gian
This small family winery in northeast Italy’s Veneto region produces single estate wines farmed organically and biodynamically and fermented with ambient yeasts.
Pas De Probleme
Located in France's Languedoc region, the name of this winery translates roughly as “no worries” – and for sure there’s no concern about the wines. They’re fermented with natural yeast and bottled unfiltered for a rich, expressive character.
Karavitakis
Making wines in the unique Greek island of Crete, this winery focuses on indigenous varieties and produces its range through organic methods.
Plonk Membership Benefits
Our Rating 5/5
Plonk's calling card is its range of organic and biodynamic wines hand picked from small wineries around the world. There's also free shipping and a good choice of delivery frequencies so I give it a 5.
Plonk wine club is a one-stop-shop for an exceptional range of organic, biodynamic, and natural wines. If you only like pure, healthy reds and whites, you’ll have a hard time finding a better club.
Benefit 1
Plonk’s sommeliers have done all of the heavy lifting, so you don’t have to spend your time digging around to locate interesting, great-tasting organic wines from across the globe. Their expertise combined with the quality wines in each shipment make the slightly higher cost of the club worth it.
Benefit 2
Plonk has fine tuned its range of clubs to suit all tastes and wallets. You can take your pick from a 100% red, all white, or mixed club and expect an excellent selection of labels to arrive with each shipment.
Benefit 3
Whatever your wine needs are, Plonk has you covered with a choice of shipping frequencies and bottle counts. You can go for four, six, or a dozen bottles with a range of delivery timings to choose from.
Benefit 4
Whatever wine club plan you choose, you get free shipping with Plonk which offsets the relatively high cost of the club. The number of bottles or frequency of delivery doesn’t change this so four bottles work out as the same as 12 despite the difference in weight. Free delivery extends to Plonk’s wine shop if you purchase at least six bottles.
Benefit 5
If you love Plonk so much that you want to share the joy with friends or family, you can give the gift of a wine membership. You can order a gift plan via your own account by selecting the “gift” option and filling in your recipient’s details.
Plonk Membership Programs
Plonk covers all wine tastes with three subscription plans. Depending on whether you have a soft spot for reds and whites, you can go for programs 100% dedicated to these types. If you like a mix of colors and styles, simply choose the “mixed” option. If you want to change the details of your plan, the club is flexible. Just get in touch.
Plonk Membership Length
Each membership theme has the choice of monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly deliveries. However, the 12-bottle club is the only club available on a monthly, bi-monthly, and quarterly shipping basis. If you pay as you go per shipment, you can cancel anytime. If you’ve chosen to pre-pay, you can’t.
Can I Give Plonk Membership as A Gift?
Our Rating 5/5
You can easily give any of Plonk's wine club plans as a gift plus send or print out a personalized card for your recipient. It's another 5.
Yes, you can give a fellow oenophile the gift of Plonk wine club membership. You have full control over this since you can activate it via your personal account, selecting the perfect plan or your loved one. There’s also the choice of sending the recipient an email about their gift or printing out a special announcement you can give them in person.
Plonk Packaging
Our Rating 5/5
Plonk packs your wines stylishly and safely so it gets a score of 5. It also adds materials that give you insights into your wines and how to enjoy them so it gets a big thumbs up.
Plonk goes the extra mile by providing a complimentary, double-hinge corkscrew making wine service easy and sophisticated. Additionally, with each plan plus in-depth tasting notes and expertly-devised recipes from the community cook platform, Food52, that match each of your wines to perfection – whatever color or style.
Price and Shipping
Our Rating 5/5
Shipping for all of Plonk's wine clubs is free plus you can reroute your case after it leaves the warehouse if necessary for a fee of $20 so it's another 5.
One of the great features about Plonk is its free-shipping policy for all wine clubs and deliveries of six bottles or more from its store. Shipments go out the first week of the month and take five to 10 days to arrive. If necessary, you can reroute to a new delivery address after your wines are on the way for a fee of $20.
Skip A Month
It’s not clear from Plonk’s website if you can skip a month or shipment. Contact the club directly to discuss your situation.
Customer Service and contact availability
Our Rating 5/5
You can reach Plonk by office-hours phone plus email. The feature that gives it a 5 is, importantly, if you're not satisfied with a wine, the club does everything in its power to make you whole.
There are two main ways of getting in touch with Plonk if you have any queries. The club has a customer service phone number open during office hours and email. Plonk has a reasonable satisfaction guarantee. If you have a problem with a bottle, get in touch within 72 hours and Plonk will make you whole.
Cancellation terms
Our Rating 4/5
You can cancel your membership at any time if you have a rolling subscription but not if you've paid in advance. This is down to consumer regulations and there's nothing Plonk can do about it but it makes things less flexible so I've scored a 4 for cancellation terms.
Whether you can cancel or not depends on how you pay for your plan. If you’ve paid in advance, you can’t cancel your plan because of consumer regulations. However, if you’ve opted for a rolling subscription, you can cancel your membership whenever it suits you by letting Plonk know seven days before the next billing date.
Disadvantages
Plonk is a great club and there are only two stand-out disadvantages. Firstly, it’s on the pricey side but then it really is a case of you get what you pay for. Organic and biodynamic wines are more costly than conventional types whether you purchase them through a club or in a store, so this isn’t a surprise. Secondly, the restrictions on cancelation if you’ve paid for your plan in advance is a problem if you really don’t want to receive any more wine. Unfortunately, there’s no way around it and you’re stuck.
Differences from the competitors
A lot of clubs, including Winc, recognize that wine consumers are interested in organic and biodynamic styles, so have a small range in their portfolios. However, none offer the choice that Plonk does so there’s no contest if pure wines is the way you want to go. Unlike Firstleaf and Bright Cellars, Plonk doesn’t use tasting tech to personalize your shipment, only offering the choice of red, white, or mixed. That being said, Plonk sees this as a good thing, allowing you to relax while its experts do the curating.
Our Opinion
On the whole, we think Plonk is a top club and worth every cent if you want nothing but pure wines in your rack. The savvy team searches far and wide around the world for tasty, interesting labels really opening up your experience of this niche area. The club offers a sound range of membership plans with different bottle counts and shipping options plus you can cancel when you want if you pay on a rolling basis. Plonk is also conscientious about dealing with its members’ queries with two ways of getting in touch. It’s top marks from us!