Sorry it’s been so long since I posted, I’ve been dealing
with some drama. Word of advice, don’t think any amount of friendship (even if it's 16 years) will stop
someone from stabbing you in the back if they think it will benefit them.
Anyways, that isn’t what this post is about at all. Today I’m going to tell you
about a new subscription club I recently joined back in October:
So you know how facebook has those ads in between your
friends posts that seem to relate to stuff you’ve posted about or even searched
for? Well I’ve recently, as in this year, started liking wine. I could never
really find a wine that I liked, but ever since my husband and I went wine
tasting for the wedding I fell in love with red wine, mainly Cabernet Sauvignon.
The bitterness mixed with the sweetness is so pleasing to the pallet. I could
even say I like it more than liquor, if you knew me personally you’d know how
shocking that is for me to say.
Well it just so happened that while scrolling through my
facebook feed I came across an advertisement for a service called Club W. Now I
had heard about it from other blogs and on insta a few times, but never really
bothered looking it up or anything. But after reading a few of the comments on
the post and checking out their site I decided to sign up.
After checking out their selection and watching a few videos
on youtube and their videos on the wines themselves I decided, what the heck
and signed up. The way the club works is pretty simple. You take a short quiz answering
questions about your tastes and favorite flavors and then you are shown a few
wines that are supposed to match what they call your Palate Profile based off
the questions you answered. You don’t have to pick off that list, and they
honestly have a huge selection of wines. The minimum bottles of wine you can
order each month is 3, but you can order more, and orders of 6 or more wines get free shipping. Each bottle ranged between $13 a
bottle to I think the most expensive I’ve seen was $35.
Here are the questions I was asked when I joined.
1. How do you like your coffee?
2.
How do you feel about salt?
3.
Do you Like Citrus?
4.
Do you like earthy flavors like mushrooms and
black-truffles?
5.
Do you like blackberries, blueberries and
raspberries?
6.
How adventurous are you when it comes to food
& drink?
Once you are done with your questions you are usually
redirected to your recommended wines page. I saw about 12 bottles recommended
towards my taste. Or you will get sent to the featured Wine page which holds
that month’s popular wines that they have decided to showcase.
Each wine has their price listed next to it, as well as a
picture. If you see a bottle that looks interesting, or just want to read more
about a certain wine just click the picture and you are taken to that wines
page.
Once there you are shown the vintage/year of that wine, what the
signature scent of that wine is as well the Origin, a description or story
behind that wine as well as a video of one of the Club W representatives
tasting the wine and describing it to you and telling you a little bit more
about that wine. Also on that page you can see what types of foods go best with
that wine as well as a recommended recipe to try with it.
For me, other than the wines, my favorite part of this site
is reading the recipes posted on their blog. (Link to their blog is on the top
bar of their site btw.) There are so many of them and they all look so yummy. I
haven’t tried any yet, but I plan on it… Eventually… Maybe… One day. Or I may
just keep doing exactly what I do with my Pinterest. “Oh I’m so going to make
this!” Pin it. Forget about it. Stumble upon it again a year later. “Oh yeah… I
never made that huh? Oh well.”
Enough about the site, let’s talk wine. So as I mentioned
before, I’m new to wine. I don’t know jack squat about tastes and tones and all
that jazz. I just know what tastes yummy, and what tastes okay. So when I went
through my list of recommended wines I honestly didn’t know what the difference
was between all the red and white wines other then what their pages said so I kind
of just picked randomly. My first order of 3 wines; two reds and one white,
cost me $26.24. I bought a 2014 Chop Shop® Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2014 Les
Bobos Carignane, and a 2014 Copycat Tempranillo. And after paying through PayPal
(I’m over cautious with ordering online don’t judge me.) and putting in my
address I went through the waiting game.
I ordered them on October 27th and I got a
notification that they were shipped later that day. It shipped from
Santa Monica through Fed Ex, and I received it on the 29th. Would
have been the 28th but we weren’t home when they tried delivering
the first time. Whoops. My heart almost dropped when the Fed Ex man showed up
on the 29th though because at first he sat in front of my house for
twenty minutes going through the back of his truck and then said he could find
it! I held back tears and waved good-bye as my wine filled dreams drove off
into the sunset… Only for my day to brighten up ten minutes later when he
returned saying he found it!! And then he proceeded to drop the box as he
walked up my driveway.
Thankfully the box was very well made and my wines were not
damaged at all. The handle on the top had fallen off. Not sure why you’d
deliver wine in a cardboard box with a flimsy plastic handle that is only held
in place because the ends are inserted into grooves in the cardboard, but oh
well.
I actually got an email shortly after receiving my wines, I seems quite a
few people had similar complaints and problems with their boxes. Club W
was trying to test out a new eco-friendly design for their boxes and this
design didn’t work very well. I believe the email said it will be shipped in a briefcase
style packaging for now on. I’m not 100% sure about that though.
So the box came with the three wines I ordered along with
cards for each wine. Each wine was packaged in cardboard separators and laid in label up. The packaging did its job. None of them cracked or broke and they arrived in perfect condition.
Each card had a picture of the wine with its name, a catchy little line underneath, along with
the description and story about the wine just like the page on the site, but it
also had a neat little flavor graph that shows you where that wine gets its
flavor from, as well as when to drink it, how to drink it (Chilled or not),
what type of grape is in it, the Origin of the wine, what it smells like, as
well as the Alcohol content by volume. I thought they were very informative, and they helped me with describing the tastes in the reviews below.
Without further ado, here are the wines I bought and what I thought about them. I've also included my referral link at the very end if you are interested in signing up and trying Club W out for yourself. :)
2014 Copycat Tempranillo.
4/5
This was the first wine we opened and tried. I’m not even
going to lie, the main reason I bought this bottle was because of the little
lion on the label. Look how cute he is!! He looks like my little baby boy
Sunny. My husband appreciated the gesture, as well as the picture on the back.
I can’t find a picture of it, but on the back the cat has tried taking his hat
off so his lion mane is halfway on/halfway off, very cute.
The flavor was great, but it did have an almost earthy woody
taste that didn’t quite taste right with the rest of the flavors. I could
really taste the cocoa and licorice and berries. It didn’t have that bitterness
that I love about Cab, but it had a taste to it that is hard to describe.
Almost like it was meant to be a cab but they decided at the last minute to
make this wine its own unique flavor. Even my husband enjoyed this wine and he
is more of a beer drinker
.
I gave this one a 4/5 just because of the earthy flavor. I don’t
know, maybe I got the flavors wrong, but it did have an odd taste once it
settled on your tongue. But for a glass every now and then it isn’t bad at all
and I could see me keeping a bottle of this around the house, if not to drink,
then for the cute label. I left my bottle at my brother-in-law’s, and his wife
collects wine bottles for her chandelier so I don’t think I’ll be getting this
bottle back any time soon. :C
2014 Les Bobos Carignane.
2/5
Didn’t like this one at all. Honestly between my husband and
myself, I think we only had one or two glasses each and haven’t touched it
since. I’ve never smelt rhubarbs so I’m not entirely sure what scent I was
supposed to be looking for when I sniffed, I mainly picked up on the pepper and
plums. And when I tasted it, yeah I got the peppery notes but it wasn’t
enjoyable; A little too bitter and dry for me. Maybe it was just too much of a
fruity flavor, but no matter how much swirling (husband swore if you swirled
before sipping it would enhance the flavor *insert eyeroll*) we did, the flavor
just wasn’t for us.
2/5 because it just wasn’t our flavor of wine. Maybe we just
aren’t Hip enough for it.
2014 Chop Shop® Cabernet Sauvignon
5/5
Who ever said diamonds are a girls best friend has
never bought good wine. Let me just throw that out there. This wine is by far
one of the best ones I’ve had so far, and that is including the fancy wine that
our wedding venue served. (You don’t even want to know how much each bottle
cost.)
I know before I said I wasn’t a fan of earthy flavors, but something about the
mixture of the strawberry sauce and the orange peel really brought out the
flavor in this one. It isn’t dry like some red wines that I’ve tasted; I’m
looking at you Les Bobos! We paired this wine with homemade chicken sausage
mini pizzas and the combo was amazing. We actually still have some of this at
home and it has been really hard not to have a glass every day, or multiple
glasses for that matter.
5/5 on this one. The flavor is amazingly full bodies and all
the ingredients blend well together making this wine one that I will be keeping
an eye out to come back in stock for future orders.
All in all I was very satisfied with my Club W experience;
although there was no way in heck I could finish three bottles in a month so I
currently have my experience on hold. That’s another great thing I forgot to mention!!
Unlike most subscription boxes you can skip a month without getting charged or
having to halt anything, once you are ready for another order just choose your
bottles and hit ship. Easy peesy. I believe my next box is set for December 27th,
I’m hoping they bring back the wine they created with Duff from Ace of Cakes.
It’s been out of stock since they released it.
Also, I’m afraid I have bad news. That beautiful memento of
a wine glass I used in all these shots broke while doing dishes last week.
*tear* I’ll never forget you!
Have you tried Club W? What was your favorite wine so far?
If you haven’t tried it yet here is my referral link go
ahead and give it a try!
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