International Wine Club Premier Series June 2016 Review & Coupons

The International Wine of the Month Club sends its subscribers two wines each month, either two reds, two whites or one of each. Each estate-bottled, limited-production wine selected for shipment is chosen by a large panel of tasters, including both experts and lay wine enthusiasts, to ensure that each bottle will be a crowd pleaser. When you sign up, you have a choice of three levels of wine: Premier Series, Masters Series or Collectors Series. The Premier Series is the basic limited-production, estate-bottled offering. The Collectors Series is the most expensive, most exclusive offering. The Masters Series ships one bottle from the Premier Series and one bottle from the Collectors Series each month. The wines included in this review were from the Premier Series.

Your first shipment will include not only your wine and cellar notes, but also various welcome letters that explain what the club is and how it works.

After traveling around the world and scouting out the best wines available, Don Lahey submits his favorite wines to a two-tiered tasting panel for review. After consulting these panels of experts and lay alike, the best-loved wines get included in the club and shipped to people’s homes. For those who enjoy the wines and would like to purchase more, the International Wine of the Month club makes it especially easy to order more at a discount (or other wines, for that matter!). Additional discounts are available for those who order in bulk.

I especially love how the International Wine of the Month Club is affiliated with other clubs. As such, you can easily switch your monthly subscription between wine, cheese, flowers, chocolate, beer and cigar subscriptions. Wine for your birthday, chocolates for Valentine’s Day and flowers for Easter are all doable with this one subscription. How cool! (I’m secretly wishing for monthly deliveries of wine, cheese, flowers AND chocolate, but alas, four monthly subscriptions are outside of my budget!)

I love how the wines arrive well-packaged in recyclable inserts.

This month’s shipment included a red wine and a white wine from Chile!

Each of the two wines arrives with comprehensive tasting notes, including recipes for suggested food pairings. Each set of cellar notes provides a nice introduction to both the winery and the appellation where the grapes are grown (as all bottles in the club are estate grown and bottled, this is usually the location of the estate).

I enjoyed Valle Secreto’s 2013 Carménère First Edition ($15.16) very much! Produced just south of Santiago in Chile’s Cachapoal Valley, an area prized for its Cabernet, Syrah and Carménère grapes, this wine does not disappoint. Displaying notes of lush fruit, chocolate, spice and cedar, this wine has balanced tannins and a wonderful full body. Originally a Bordeaux varietal, historically, Carménère was often confused with Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Ironically, it was out of this confusion that we still have Carménère today: after exporting it, thinking it was Merlot, much of the Carménère was wiped out by phylloxera in Bordeaux. What vines remain are descendants of the exported vines. This was my first time drinking a stand-alone Carménère, and I hope to try many more. Soon! I especially enjoyed the historical background on Carménère provided by the International Wine Club.

I enjoyed Casas del Bosque’s 2015 Sauvignon Blanc ($16.99) as well! Produced in Chile’s Casablanca Valley, near both Santiago and Valparaiso, this delightful Sauvignon Blanc has fruit and herbal notes that blossom as the wine aerates and the chill subsides. Crisp, fruity and dry, this is a great choice for a summer picnic. Or you can do as I did and toast yourself to a relaxing night once the children have gone to bed.

I really enjoyed these two bottles of wine! This is the third installment I’ve received from the International Wine of the Month Club, and I couldn’t be more pleased. The wines I have received have come from all around the world. They have included new varietals to me, and yet I have enjoyed every one of them. I’m thrilled that the International Wine of the Month club has challenged me to branch out and try new things. If there’s one thing I’ve learned with this wine club, it’s that great wine is available for a reasonable cost, but it helps to have a team of experts do the scouting for you. Both of these bottles were great, and I look forward to what I hope are many more months of discovery ahead!

• Save $25 on your first 12 shipment order. Use coupon code SAVE25.

• Save $15 on your first 6 shipment order. Use coupon code SAVE15.

• Save $10 on your first 4 shipment order. Use coupon code SAVE10.

Visit International Wine Club of the Month to subscribe or find out more!