Days That End in Y

Recently, I decided to join a couple different wine clubs due to participating in a promotion to receive a freebie. Well, I received the freebie and several days later, I received two large wine shipments! Admittedly, I haven’t had a chance to try any of the wines, so I can’t comment on their quality according to my own palette. However, I can comment on all other aspects of the wine clubs and will post my own reviews of the individual wines as I drink them.

I joined two different wine clubs: Four Seasons and International Wine Cellars’ Classic Selections Family. Four Seasons is quarterly while International Wine is monthly. Interestingly, they both turned out to be the same company under different guises. Different names that you might or might not see them use are: Direct Wines, International Wine, Four Seasons, Merchant Direct, and possibly others. Depending on what promotion you find and sign up through, they cost varying amounts of money. Due to the restrictions of the NuiTech promotion in which I participated, I ended up paying more than what I might have by just going through their site. However, at what amounted to $11.41 and$17.95 per bottle respectively ($12.34/bottle overall), the wine club was very comparable to buying in a brick and mortar store. It may have even been a little cheaper!

However, is each bottle of wine actually worth $12.34 each? Honestly, I don’t know, especially since I haven’t tried any of them yet. In addition, it’s hard to find information on these wines. I don’t recognize most of the labels and Google searches return little for some of them. Furthermore, some of the results are downright confusing. For example, Thornhill Vineyards appears to be in Missouri, but both the label and notes point to San Luis Obispo County in California! To make it even more confusing, the back label says that it was “vinted and bottled by Viviers Wine Cellars” in Los Angeles. Anyway, if someone out there has access to something like Wine Spectator’s ratings (I’m too cheap to cough up the money), I’d be interested to know the wine critics’ opinions of these wines:

• International Wine
  • 2004 Le Lion d’Argent Merlot
  • 2004 Terrerosse Toscana Rosso
• Four Seasons (received two bottles of each)
  • 2003 Thornhill Vineyards Merlot
  • 2004 Le Lion d’Or 80% Cabernet Sauvignon & 20% Grenache
  • 2003 Mohai Merlot
  • 2004 Julius Clauss Rheinhessen
  • 2004 Piduco Creek Chardonnay
  • 2004 Bramblewood Sauvignon Blanc

The bottles were extremely well packed in cardboard that was made specifically for shipping wine. The packaging looks sturdy and reusable, so I’m holding onto it. The main problem with the shipping, though, was in relation to their delivery dates: they were completely unknown. The only estimate I received was “by the end of February”, which simply wasn’t helpful. Instead, I had to come home to the surprise of FedEx leaving behind a door tag, which I signed and posted the next day. Despite laws and very clear markings on the outside of the packaging requiring a 21-year-old or older adult to sign for the packages, FedEx left them behind outside my door! While it made the experience better for me, I’m sure that it may leave a bad taste in some parents’ and lawmakers’ mouths.

The next thing I address is the inclusion of notes. Aside from wine arriving at your door, this is probably the next best feature! This is a huge pet peeve of mine when it comes to wine, as the lack of notes on labels only helps breed confusion and snobbery among oenophiles. I enjoy the more progressive brands that offer brief notes on the back label. However, even those can’t compare to these notes! The Four Seasons club even delivers a binder to hold onto all your notes, and they contain a very detailed description of the vineyard and wine, a longevity code, suggested food accompaniments, serving temperature, evolution, style, and more. They’re very helpful and give the entire story behind the bottle of wine that none of us would ever know otherwise.

Since I haven’t tasted any of the wine, the last thing to address is cancellation. It was extremely easy. I called the common number that these two companies shared, and within seconds, I had a friendly operator from Merchant Direct on the line. She cancelled my order with minimal hassle and only asked why I wanted to cancel. There was no fussing, a barrage of offers, rudeness, or long strings of automated answering systems that I’ve encountered with practically all other companies. The process was painless and made me want to go back as a customer, which I’ll certainly consider after polishing off some of the wine overflowing on my rack.

Overall, this seems like an easy and carefree way to buy wine. I’m being introduced to a number of different wines I probably never would’ve picked up in stores, and even if they turn out to be horrible, it’ll be a learning experience. I hope that the rest of the USA ends up legalizing direct wine shipments, so that everyone can participate. The only gripes I have are the admitted sketchiness of the company due to their participation in direct marketing programs and the lack of information available about these wines aside from company-provided materials.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.