How many of you guys are getting tired of receiving mail talking about "the best wine club you can join"? I'm sure you know the mail I am talking about, the ones who offer you twenty wines for $30 PLUS free shipping? Well, if you're like me you probably get a lot of this type of mail. The other day I was sitting in front of my computer reading one of those particular mailings when it dawned on me, are these clubs really any good and do they offer up good wine for a decent price? Right then and there I decided that was a great idea to blog about. I immediately sent out e-mails to different wine clubs letting them know that I was looking for them to participate in my review which would rate their club overall. Five clubs responded back. One club the Plonk Wine Club said they "......aren't looking for a review at this time." and while I was a bit surprised, I do appreciate them taking the time to get back with me. The second club which semi responded was the Wall Street Journal Wine Club. They responded with an automated e-mail saying that "Due to very high volume, our email responses have been delayed. We apologize but promise we will get back to you within 72 hours." Well, 72 hours came and went and no one got back with me. As a matter of fact as of the date of me writing this over thirteen working days have passed and they still have yet to get back with me, so much for their "promise." Because of this I would not recommend you do business with them as they are unreliable.
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| Don't Pay Full Price For Wine |
Now there were three wine clubs who were actually interested enough to
send out wine in order for me to review their club and I want to talk
about the first club right now. The club I am going to discuss today is
the Cellars Wine Club (
https://www.cellarswineclub.com/90-point-wine-of-the-month-club.aspx).
Cellars was sent my e-mail on December 30th and the following day I
received a response back from Tom who loved the idea of a review being
performed on the company and the wine. After researching the company
profile I found out that there is a Tom Bauer who is the company Vice
President. After getting in touch with Tom that belief was confirmed as it
was indeed Tom Bauer. Tom gave me the opportunity to choose from one of
their many different levels of the club and I picked their "90 Point
Club" which they say is wines rated 90+ or more by the likes of Wine
Spectator & Robert Parker. I let him know as well that I would like
one red wine and one white wine. Tom responded back saying that he will
have the wine to me by the end of next week. The very next day I got
another e-mail from Tom stating that the wine shipped that day and
provided me with a tracking number from FedEx. Today, the 7th of January
I received the wines but before I talk about them here is some information on the club in general.
There are a total of twelve
different sub clubs to choose from. You can go anywhere from the "Bottle
Club" where you get one bottle of wine for $29, all the way up to a
case of wine. As an example the "90+ Point Case Club" offers you a full
case of wine (12 bottles) delivered to your door on a one time shipment
or up to 4 times. Each shipment would be quarterly. The cost for this
club is $369. Shipping is included in the price for all the clubs. Here (
https://www.cellarswineclub.com/best-wine-clubs.aspx)
is a link to all the different sub clubs they offer. There is no membership
fee and they offer a money back guarantee on all their wines.
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| Hall, Merlot Tasting Notes |
Today I posted the unboxing video (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU_zwf8jE5o)
I did. During this unboxing video which is available on my YouTube channel I did the usual introduction of the wines and talked in general about the wine club. While doing this video I also talked about what I consider
to be an issue that stems from lack of attention to detail by one or
more of the clubs employees. I am assuming that the issue probably occurred while picking the
wines for boxing. Let me go ahead and tell you what disturbed me. The wines come with individual Tech Sheets from the
wineries themselves as well as one general information from the club which includes tasting notes as well as some technical information concerning the wines. This information sheet is put out by the wine club
themselves. I would normally say that this was great and helps
those of us who like to dig a little deeper into what we drink to learn more about the wines. This information sheet is where the first problem occurred appeared. The first problem that showed up was that the Tech
Sheet as well as the general information sheet were both for the 2014 vintage of the Hall, Merlot
however I actually received the 2012 Hall, Merlot, interesting huh? This means
that all the information given in reference to the 2014 Merlot which I
did NOT receive is of course not valid for the 2012 vintage that I DID
receive and therefore are of no use to me as a wine reviewer nor as a
consumer as wishing more in depth information
on the wine they are drinking. In order to get that information we would have to go out of our way and
research that wine ourselves and we shouldn't have to do that, that is not cool as that is the very purpose of those sheets. Now for some good
news. I immediately contacted Tom and he very quickly got back with me
and apologized saying that there was a case of loose bottles in the
Warehouse and the
wrong wine was picked out and that there
would be a bottle of the 2014 sent out immediately. I received the correct
wine two days which was great. Now I have to say
really quick that while the vintage mix up certainly wasn't something that was a good thing I
did originally think at the time that the rapid response by Tom to correct the error did show that
the company was pretty responsive to the customer and I told him so in an e-mail. It was a mistake which was remedied. Now, I did say originally Right? As I sat down with the 2012 I now received and prepared to do a review on the wine I began to look a little further into the Tech Sheet
(https://na87.sales force.com/sfc/p/#40000000IZGT/a/400000004Opf/bUNP_h6zWleah_1HZiUcNZCLk14p7BqUrlUpO06jNVU) for the wine and I noticed there were
MORE glaring errors
when the Tech Sheet was compared to the information sheet and this I can only attribute to sloppy employee performance, lack of
attention to detail and overall poor customer Service, now I could no longer let things slide. The information sheet
which I said came from the club itself along with the wines continued to provide more inaccurate
information that would have never been written if the clubs employees
had simply been paying attention to the information they had in their
possession or even perhaps simply cared. This information sheet
written by the club itself says that the 2014 Hall, Merlot is a blend of
97% Merlot & 3% Malbec however according to the Tech Sheet (from the winery itself) said the wine is 100% Merlot. There were
unfortunately even more mistakes. The Tech Sheet from the winery said
that the wine sat in 45% new French Oak and the information sheet from
the club said it sat in 40% new French Oak. Are you ready for another
one? The Tech Sheet from the winery said that the wine aged in
French Oak for 20 months while the information sheet from the club said
it was aged for the wine aged 18 months in French Oak. All this from a wine club that's supposedly devoted
to wine education. All around the club seemed to be rather sloppy in
getting the information about their product accurately relayed to
their consumers. This is not good.
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| Bottle, Tech & Info Sheets |
Now for what I thought about the wines. Let me first talk about the
2012 Hall - Merlot for just a second. While I won't get into a full
blown review of the wine as I will be doing a separate review on it, I
will say that this was the best tasting Merlot that I have ever had the
privilege of reviewing, flat out. This is a serious wine with an ultra
intense dark depth to it as well as deep Tobacco notes, Black Spice,
good acidity & ripe red fruit. This wine was a winner. As for the 2014 vintage the wine was also amazing and presented itself much more like a Cabernet Sauvignon with the spice of the Tempranillo varietal thrown in. Both wines were delicious and worth their prices. Now as far as
the second wine goes, this is the Lu & Oly - White Blend. The wine
presented great acidity and sharpness. The wine was brilliant in the
glass and showed nice complexity although it was perhaps a bit
overbearing on the Palate. Let me be clear here, I had no issues with
the wines themselves, they were very good wines.
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| Tom Bauer - V.P Cellars Wine Club |
Now let's
look at the numbers to see if financially a consumer would benefit going
through the Cellars Wine Club or if they would be better off buying the
wines on their own. If you break this down I received two wines shipped for $79. I bring to your attention again that the club say that shipping is free, they even have a page dedicated to it (
https://www.cellarswineclub.com/Dont-Pay-Full-Price-For-Wine.aspx). Now, the Hall - Merlot retails for
$40 and the Lu & Oly - White Blend sells for $28. All together a
consumer would pay a total of $68 for both wines. If you look at the
picture above you will see that the company advertises "don't pay full price
for wine" yet according to the numbers I am actually paying more then
full price for the wines. I don't see how I am making out by joining the club, sorry.
In the end, here is my take on all of this. While Tom was very responsive in correcting first issue issue I am afraid that I have to say that the company overall failed to
follow through on its promises that you don't have to pay full price for
wine and that they are devoted
to wine education. The company is not detail oriented at all and fails to provide
accurate information on their product(s). Allow me to ask you a
question. If as a consumer you go for your first time to deal with a
company and on that very first dealing with that company they make so
many mistakes on important things, are you going to go back when there are other companies who will provide just as good a product for cheaper? Folks, I am sorry
but I cannot recommend Cellars Wine Club. While the wine was very good
indeed and I appreciate Tom sending me the wines, I feel I have been jaded. I had to do way too much investigation and correction on their product to make me comfortable.As
someone who is looking for more then just good wine from a wine club I
simply don't feel confident that Customer Service is up to par and that
can cause numerous big time issues down the line perhaps even with billing. I shouldn't have to worry if a correction would have been as quick if I
wasn't in touch with the Vice President of the company and doing a
review on his company, of course that I
have no way of knowing.
The Desert Wine Guy
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