Winc

Branding itself as “the Netflix of wine,” Winc (formerly known as Club W) is a monthly subscription service for private label wine, champagne, rosé, cider, and other alcoholic beverages.

The company has curated a collection of hundreds of varieties and promises to make it easier and more pleasurable for you to find the wine you love.

Winc was founded in 2012 by co-founders Xander Oxman and Geoff McFarlane, who teamed up with noted winemaker and sommelier Brian Smith to create a personalized wine club that strips down the barriers for people intimidated by the process of learning what wines they enjoy.

Today, the company claims their monthly wine club has helped hundreds of thousands of customers learn about new types a wine and find a passion for the drink.

Our analysis will help you decide whether this subscription service is worth it.

How Does Winc Subscription Work?

Winc offers a variety of wine types, including red, white, cider, rose, sparkling, and vegan.

To get started with a Winc subscription, you’ll first share your taste preferences through a short survey that asks how you like your coffee, your salt habits, whether you enjoy citrus, salty or earthy flavors, and berries, and whether you prefer red or white wines.

Based on your results, the company will suggest four bottles of wine. If you’re already a customer, these recommendations will also take into account any ratings you left on previous bottles. You have the final say over all varieties and can swap them out or add extra.

The total cost will depend on your bottle selection. It will be between $52–$160 for the four bottles selected for you, though most orders are under $60. Membership shipping is $9 but free for all orders over $50.

Winc will send you a minimum of four bottles every month. It’s up to you to add more bottles if desired. Your order will also include pairing recommendations and recipes to ensure you get the maximum benefit from each bottle.

After you’ve tried each wine, you can leave feedback on the Winc website. Not only does this help other customers with their decisions, but Winc will use your rating to better predict which wines you will like going forward.

Each month you’ll receive credits for purchasing more wine. You can skip a month at any time to avoid paying for credits.

You can also purchase Winc wine without signing up for a subscription. The company sells every bottle on-site at both a standard price point and at a Winc member price approximately 10% less. You’ll need to pay $15 for shipping unless your order includes at least four bottles.

Each wine variety has a full description, complete with tasting notes, alcohol content, and origin information on the company website. You can also look at the rating distribution left by previous Winc customers and get advice on food pairings for each bottle.

While Winc ships across most of the United States, some states aren’t currently eligible for delivery: AK, AL, AR, DE, HI, KY, MI, MS, RI, SD, UT. The company won’t deliver to PO boxes, and an adult over 21 needs to be available to sign for every delivery.

Your subscription will continue indefinitely until you cancel it through your online account. Make sure you do so at least three days before your next shipment date to avoid having it processed and sent out.

If your order arrives damaged or with the wrong wines, you can contact the company to fix the problem. In cases where you refuse your delivery or want to return the wines for other reasons, you’ll need to pay up to a $20 restocking fee.

Pros and Cons of Private Label Wine

As with many subscription wine companies, Winc makes and bottles its own wine through connections with vineyards and winemakers around the world.

The company claims to be committed to small batches so that they can ensure they focus on quality over quantity for every offering.

Though most Winc Wines are available exclusively from the site, a few are sold elsewhere. In the vast majority of cases, Winc wine is private label and only available from the company. What does this mean?

Private label wine as a wine that is sourced from the manufacturer and then managed by the retailer. In other words, Winc purchases wine from a variety of wineries around the world and then puts its own labels on the bottles.

There’s a massive market for this type of wine, as sales have doubled in the past decade to now make up more than 10% of total wine sales. However, this has mixed benefits for the final consumer.

To start, private label wine is often bought in bulk at a low price and then fancied up with labels and even fake “awards” to make it seem distinguished.

Second, it’s often harder to trace the origins of private label wine to specific vineyards or grape batches, which means you’ll be less likely to know if you’re really getting what you’re paying for.

That’s not to say all private label wine is lower quality. Some wineries actually sell off their best quality wine for private labeling because doing so ensures they have a buyer and an immediate profit. As with all wines, determining whether a bottle is good or bad will primarily come down to personal preferences.

Analysis of Customer Reviews

Over 50 Winc customers have left reviews on our website. Just a quarter of these reviewers (28%) would recommend the service to their friends, and the company averages 2.2-stars overall.

Common Compliments:

• Easy to skip months when desired
• Good discounts on bulk purchases
• Convenient auto-ship program

Common Complaints:

• Difficult to cancel subscriptions
• Low-quality wine for expensive prices
• Customer service not helpful for dealing with wrong orders
• Hard to control the timing of deliveries (buyers had to ensure they were home to accept deliveries)
• Some people had their cards charged even after they thought they had canceled their order

Popular Alternatives

Each of these subscription clubs offers something slightly different, though Winc, Firstleaf, and Bright Cellar are all fairly similar. Each offers majority private label, full-sized wines on a subscription basis. Though each plan has a set amount of bottles that you receive per order, you can add extras easily.

VineBox and Tasting Room are both slightly different. VineBox sells wine only by the glass in specialized vials that are designed to keep it as fresh as if you had just popped the cork from the bottle. You also have fewer options for customization as the company curates the samples based on specific themes.

These samples come from pricey bottles and cost up to $10 per vial. However, that’s a cost-savings compared to buying the full bottle only to find out you didn’t love it and wasted your money.

Tasting Room can be viewed as a combination of these two subscription systems. The company offers primarily private label wine, but you can try each flavor as a sample before committing to a full-size bottle. Just keep in mind that if you sign up for the samples you are committing to at least one delivery of full-sized bottles before you can cancel your subscription.

The Bottom Line

Winc offers a convenient way to receive wine on a subscription basis and have it delivered directly to your door.

The company offers a broad selection of wines from around the world. These wines are all private label, which means, in most cases, it’s impossible to do much cost comparison or read many reviews of specific bottles outside of the Winc website.

Overall, Winc is offering a similar service as many monthly wine membership clubs. We like that the company offers more flexibility than most with how many bottles you receive a month and by letting you skip scheduled deliveries without canceling your membership. However, you might find the wine quality to be hit or miss compared to what’s available from traditional retailers.

Winc makes sense for those who want a fun way to try new wines, but there are other options available as well. You might want to sign up for several on a trial basis until you learn which has the wine that resonates most with you.