Winc (Club W) July 2016 Subscription Box Review & $20 Off Coupon

Winc (formerly Club W) is a wine subscription service that sends wine directly to you each month based on your personalized palate profile.  A “global winery,” Winc advertises that it has “direct relationships with vineyards and farmers to make exceptional small lot wines at prices impossible to achieve at retail.”

If you’re like me, you find yourself buying the same wines every time you go to the store–you’ve found those bottles you like, and it seems too risky and expensive to buy something else just to try it.  Plus, those store employees are either clueless about wine or make YOU feel clueless about wine.  Winc is the perfect solution!  You fill out a quick survey about what tastes you like–black coffee, citrus, etc., and Winc makes a customized recommendation of 3 bottles that fits what you like.  Then, for $6 flat shipping (or free if you pick a 4th bottle), it comes to your house!  What could be easier than that?

The new packaging (Club W rebranded to Winc) continues to be good protection for the bottles.  I find the design of the internal holders fascinating.  Keep in mind that someone 21+ will have to sign for your box.

July is high summer in the south, and anyone who can scrape together gas money beats it for anyplace not landlocked.  So this month, I forewent a girls’ night of wine tasting to play board games and drink wine with my husband.  That’s good times, too.  This month, I just took whatever Winc wanted to send me, and I got a selection of lighter, fruitier wines.  This could go a couple ways, but Winc knows I like my wines dry, so I had high hopes. 

As always, Winc sent cool information cards about each wine, with coordinating recipes to go with them.

We started light with the 2015 Independent Chenin Blanc.

Chenin Blanc is one of those wines I think of as having a big “flavor,” like Sauvignon Blanc.  This is not a wine you toss back on the porch while watching football–the flavor demands to be thought about.  Chenin Blanc can be lean and fruity, or it can come up kind of oaky and heavy.  This particular wine tends toward the lighter variety.  It was a pretty lemon color in the glass and smelled, seriously, like peach candy.  Now, I like peach candy, but not in my glass, so I was pleased to discover that the “peachiness” carries into this wine, but not the sweetness.  This wine is smooth and rounder than you’d expect for its light mouthfeel.  After the peach, there is some melon flavor, but there’s also a backbone of tartness that balances the whole thing.  This was a nice wine, and the one we both went back to for a “full” glass after we tasted everything.  It would go well with any kind of light fare, from sandwiches to fish tacos.  Actually, it would go great with fish tacos.  Drink it super cold.

The next white was the 2015 New Native Sauvignon Blanc.

Why yes, this wine does look exactly the same in the glass as the last one.  The flavors were pretty similar, too.  This wine didn’t have much of a nose but tasted lemony at first.  It moderated into a sweetish peach flavor and then finished long with a minerally aftertaste, with a bit of alcoholic heat.  This wine had a nice lightness that my husband enjoyed, but I thought the flavors were unbalanced.  It went better with food than alone, particuarly (and surprisingly) with the blue cheese in our salads.  It would probably also complement garlicky chicken or a pesto pasta.  We drank this cold but I liked it better after it warmed up in the glass a bit.

Next up was our first red, the 2015 Wordsmith red blend.  Nerd alert on this one.

Yep.  It’s a bottle of wine with a crossword puzzle on it.  One that you can download from Winc and complete yourself–maybe.  David Kwong wrote the puzzle for Winc, and it was no easy Monday puzzle, let me tell you.  Oh, yes, the wine.  Well, gimmick aside, this was a decent bottle of wine.  It was dark purple in the glass and smelled like cran-grape juice.  It had a medium body and a soft/silky mouthfeel.  If you’re old enough to get the reference, you’ll know what I mean when I say that it tasted like pipe tobacco smells.  I think the fruitiness got a little overwhelming after a few sips, almost like a port, but it stayed light with a quick finish, so it didn’t tip into cloying territory.  This would be a good wine to pull out with spicy Chinese food–the fruitiness would be a great complement to those flavors.

And, yes, of course we finished the puzzle.  We’re nerds who like to win.  A hard Wednesday, we decided.

Our last wine was another red blend, the 2014 #TBT.

The #TBT red blend is a Winc staple that changes each vintage.  This version is largely Merlot with some Sangiovese to lighten it up.  As you can see, it’s a gorgeous dark cherry color in the glass.  It doesn’t have much of a nose but does have a surprisingly light mouthfeel.  It’s aged in oak, which you can definitely taste, but this wine has a nice, fresh, juiciness that we both enjoyed.  It sounds crazy, but it reminded us both of a smoky barbeque, in a good way.  This wine finished cleanly and didn’t have much of an aftertaste.  It went great with our chicken sandwiches and I think would be outstanding with grilled meats.  I’d love to try it with BBQ to see how the flavors play off of each other.  We drank this off-chill and that seemed right.  My favorite red for sure and second-favorite over all.

And that’s it for July!  A good night for hanging in and trying some new things.  I can’t wait to see what we get next time!

Have you tried Winc yet? You can use this link for $20 off your first order – no coupon code required! ($25 total for 3 bottles, but you can grab an extra bottle and get free shipping!)

Visit Winc to subscribe or find out more!