Blue Apron Wine Subscription Box Review - September 2017

Blue Apron Wine is a subscription for people who love trying new wines as much as they love great food. You may be familiar with the Blue Apron Meal Delivery Kit subscription, which sends boxes of fresh ingredients to make exciting meals at home. The wine subscription is separate from the meal subscription, but it’s designed to complement it.

Here’s how it works: every month, for about $11 per bottle ($65.99/month, including shipping and tax), Blue Apron sends you 6 bottles of wine, plus tasting notes and pairing recommendations. The wines are selected to pair perfectly with the meals in the Blue Apron kits. The bottles are 500 ml, or 2/3 the size of a standard bottle, which, in addition to being adorable, means that you and your dining partner can enjoy your entire bottle with your meal without regretting that additional glass needed to finish a standard-sized bottle.

Blue Apron pairs with wineries around the world to bring a wide range of new and interesting wines to you each month. I love wine, and I love food, and I love everything about the idea of this subscription.

The wine comes securely packaged in a clever little box. Keep in mind that someone 21+ will need to sign for it. Everything is in great shape when it arrives, and the packaging is, happily, recyclable cardboard.

The box can also come in handy if your 8-year-old decides the power has been out long enough that he needs to build a solar oven.

DEAL: You can try out your first box of Blue Apron dinners for $30 off with this link.

Blue Apron Wine now allows you to select your wines! You can go all white, red, or mix it up. This month, I went with what was recommended, but it’s incredibly easy to switch out your bottles.

If you’re wondering what a 2/3-sized bottle looks like, here is one of the bottles with a standard-sized bottle next to it. You’ll get about 3 1/2 standard glasses in a bottle, or a generous pour plus a top-off each if you’re with a partner.

Each box comes with a great collection of tasting notes. Blue Apron tells you a little bit about the winery and how the bottle was made, plus the region at large. Because, come on, you didn’t REALLY know where the Central Coast was, did you? The info details the color, body, and structure of the wine, and also gives some thoughtful food pairings for each bottle. The info is terrific – wine is not scary, and tasting it should be fun and informative. Data is your friend.

September is not my favorite month of the year (hello, October) but it’s getting close! Fresh apples are back in the grocery stores, and college football has begun. That’s all the reason I need to hang out in the backyard with the neighbors and drink some new wine. Let’s go.

First up was the 2015 Uvaggio Vermentino. This is a new varietal for me, which is one of the reasons I love a wine subscription. This wine comes from California, but its heart is in Italy.

The Uvaggio is a light yellow color in the glass, and the body is very light, too. The aroma is pears and citrus, and that carries into the flavor, too. The citrus flavor drops off quickly into an almost appley flavor and then it finishes very quickly with a hint of mineral at the end. This wine reminds me of a Sauvignon Blanc, though it’s a bit lighter on the tongue. The acidity keeps everything nice and fresh, and it went really well with the Blue Apron meal I made, Chicken and Lemon Caper Sauce. We drank this cold, and it didn’t really improve as the glass warmed, so I’d keep it chilled while you’re drinking. A nice start to our box.

Next up, a White Bordeaux, the 2016 Chateau Grand Jean. Bordeaux of all colors are terrific food wines, because they meld so nicely with a variety of flavors, and they tend to be lower in alcohol than other similar-bodied wines. This one is a typical Semillion and Sauvignon Blanc blend from France.

The wine is about the same color in the glass as the Uvaggio, but you can tell when you swirl it that it has a heavier body. It was nice and present, with the typical peachy citrus flavors that you expect from a white Bordeaux. This one, unlike some others I’ve had, didn’t have that wet-concrete finish, but left a lingering floral note. This was a touch unbalanced in the direction of fruit, but it was interesting and went pretty well with our neighbor’s paella. Just barely off-chill is best here.

Our last white was the 2016 Airfield Estates Chardonnay. This Chard comes from Washington, not California, so I was expecting a leaner, more minerally wine than the fat, buttery Chards you get from Cali. Once in a while, I call them correctly!

The Airfield Estates made it three-for-three in light yellow white wines, with a lighter-than-normal-for-Chard mouthfeel. The nose was all peachy mineral, though, and there was no mistaking it as anything but a Chardonnay. The peach flavors lead, with green apple coming in strong for a lingering finish of crushed stone and a wisp of lime. Not only did this not taste like a fat Chardonnay, but it didn’t taste much like a Chardonnay at all. Honestly, if I had a gun to my head, I would have said it was a Sauvignon Blanc. Fortunately, there were no weapons, just weeknight leftovers and tasty wine. We drank this out of the fridge (because, Tuesday) and it was great.

On to our red wine, the 2015 Medel Pinot Noir. This bottle hails from the Willamette Valley, everyone’s favorite appellation for American Pinot.

The Medel is a pretty medium purple in the glass with a berry/vanilla nose. The flavors, though, lean much more toward plums and dark fruit, with a surprisingly tannic finish for a Pinot Noir. I have gotten kind of bored with soft, bland Pinot Noirs, and this one surprised me with some backbone. I really liked it. Pork is everyone’s go-to for Pinot, but we had it with black beans and rice, and the dark flavors of the beans went nicely with the fruit and tannins in the Medel. This was definitely our favorite wine in the box. Cool room temperature for this one.

Our next red was the 2014 Alma Gitana Grenache. Ah, Grenache, the workhorse of blends and often a good value on its own. This varietal comes from the Carinena region, so it leans hard on the berry flavors and alcohol heat, in spite of the relatively low (13.6% ABV) alcohol.

This is a dark grape color in the glass, with a very heavy body. Its nose is all dark fruit with a hint of spice. The spice doesn’t show up in the flavor, though, which was reminiscent of cherry cough syrup. It’s not sweet, but there isn’t enough tannin to balance the fruit, and the result is somewhat unappealing. We had this with takeout tacos, and it was drinkable, but it didn’t complement the food like I expected it to. A miss for me. We drank it at cool room temperature.

Last up was the 2015 Babcock Cabernet Sauvignon. Regular readers of these reviews (Hi, Mom!) know that I’m picky about my Cabs–I LOVE a good Cab, but good Cabs are expensive, and inexpensive Cabs tend to suck. I enjoyed the Pinot Noir that this winery made for Blue Apron, so I was cautiously optimistic about the Cab.

The Babcock is bright garnet in the glass, with a medium body. The tasting (smelling?) notes are right-on with the nose–it’s cherry and red licorice for sure. Honestly, I was expecting a heavy, sweetish wine, but I was surprised to find that the Babcock is pretty light on its feet. This is a lean Cab, with plenty of fruit but some nice herbal flavors to cut the sweetness, and a strong tannic backbone to balance it out. It’s not super-typical of the varietal, but you can tell it’s a Cab, and I enjoyed it in spite of myself. This went nicely with our college-football-watching-bbq and would complement any red meat or even a mushroom dish. Just barely off room temperature was right for this bottle. A surprising thumbs-up.

And that was our September box of Blue Apron Wine! Our wines were from all over this month, which is neat, and I love being surprised with unexpected flavors in wines I think I know. We have been really pleased with the variety and quality of this wine subscription. If you’re a Blue Apron subscriber, I’d definitely give the Wine subscription a try. The recipe pairings are spot-on, and it’s a great way to try a wine or two you might not know about.

By the way, Blue Apron has a new system for pairing its wines and its food subscriptions, somewhat like you might have seen in nicer grocery stores — the wines are categorized by type (crisp & minerally, plush & fruity, etc.) and then that symbol shows up on the food recipes. Pair any wine of the recommended type to the food, and voila — you have a great meal!