We've been seeing some buzz lately about The New York Times Wine Club, so we figured that we would give it a look. Although the Huffington Post was a bit cynical when it announced “New York Times Creates Wine Club to Make Money,” the reality is that wine clubs are a big business and The New York Times has the perfect readers to pitch.
How Can You Order?
The website is made up of 3 different shopping sections: Club, Gifts, and Store.
The New York Times Wine Club offers two different clubs–the Times Sampler Wine Club ($90 for 6 bottles) and the Times Reserve Wine Club ($180 for 6 bottles). Both can be shipped every month, every other month, or every three months.
The Gifts section of the site offers specific collections such as the Pinot Perfection, Southern Hemisphere Reds, Tour of Europe, and Times Sampler Club. They range in price from $49.99 for 3 bottles to $360 for 24 bottles spread across an entire year.
The Store allows you to purchase the wines they offer in their gifts and clubs but by the single bottle starting at $11. Shipping is high for only one bottle ($10) but if you are ordering 3-6bottles, it is not too bad. Unfortunately, they can only ship to about half of the states. (If you are in one of the others, check out Shop by State page to see which clubs ship to you).
What's the Wine Like?
The wines for the club are chosen and distributed by Global Wine Company. They run other similar wine clubs such as the Washington Post Wine Club (not to be confused with the Wall Street Journal Club run by Direct Wines) and the Williams-Sonoma Wine Club. The selection team is made up of esteemed Certified Sommeliers, wine educators, and writers.
The bottles all supposedly retail in the $15-20 range and will not likely be found locally (which is the case with most wine clubs). Each wine comes with information about the wine and pairing recipes (again, like most other wine clubs).
We haven't gotten our hands on a shipment yet, but once we do, we promise a full review.
