Winc: Wine Subscription Service Review & Free Bottle Code!

We love to get mail. Who doesn't? We also love wine. Also, who doesn't? We recently wondered why we had not tried out one of the many wine subscription services, we really had no good explanation. We are members of many Carmel Valley wine clubs and get most of our wine locally but we rarely try wines that aren't local let alone produced outside of California. We decided that trying out a wine subscription would be a great way to try something new, and have the excitement of waiting for the mail to arrive as well!

First up on our quest to find the best wine subscription service is Winc (formerly known as Club W). 

Winc is a L.A. based start-up winery who's mission is to provide the world with stellar wines at reasonable prices. Working directly with vineyards and winemakers, and distributing directly to the consumer (us), they keep prices down so we get these wines at a great price!

To get started, you sign up and take a quick quiz to identify your palate profile. Then they suggest several wines for you based on your profile and you can either keep the selections or pick from the ever changing range of wines on offer.  

We ended up selecting our own wines, some of them were matched to us from our profile, and some were not. We were SO excited to get the package...we actually ran right out to the delivery man when he came. The package includes the wines and cards with a description and a recipe to pair with each bottle. You can also get these recipes on the Winc website. 

First up: 

2015 Copycat Barbera

Paso Robles, CA

We adore this label! A cat in a triceratops costume, what could be cuter?! We thought the wine was very light for the color of wine and had no lingering finish. It tasted of red cherry and raspberry with a touch of herbs. Overall we would drink it again but we wouldn't go out of our way to purchase it. 

2015 Cocomero Rosé of Barbera

California

The label is fun and definitely eye catching. It grabs our attention but it also makes us a bit weary since fun girly labels tend to be on the sweet side. In this case it was not sweet. This was definitely a darker rosé in color. The flavor matched the color, it was a very flavorful rosé. It really tasted like drinking a bowl of fruit salad (a lot of things going on). Overall we thought it wasn't that great of a rosé. We like our rosés on the lighter side with less complexity. 

2015 Wildest Dreams White Blend

Central Coast, CA

We really love the labeling on this wine. Ivy also like the name because it reminds her of Taylor Swifts song "Wildest Dreams". The label is definitely "trendy' and has a really cute heart stamped on the top and bottom of the cork. The wine itself was our favorite of the four. We liked its crisp acidity, and that it was pretty dry. Their were flavors of peach and honeysuckle with a little bit of lemon. We could see ourselves drinking this with our nectarine and burrata salad or even a thin crust veggie pizza. It's a great all around white wine. 

2015 PYT Malvasia Bianca Pétillant Naturel (called Pét-Nat for short) 

Paso Robles, CA

This wine style has recently become popular in the wine industry although its one of the oldest ways to make sparkling wine. The reason its becoming more readily available is for two reasons, the first being sparkling wine is becoming really popular to all wine consumers, second being this is the simplest and most cost effective way to make a sparkling wine (more on this at a later time). 

Being sparkling wine lovers we decided we should give it a try and see what the rage is all about. The label itself is pretty and would stand out well on a shelf. When we opened it, as warned on Winc, the bottle fizzed out the top of the bottle all over our hands and counter. We quickly poured it into our glasses. The color of the wine was straw yellow and hazy because there's no filtering involved. The taste was a little tart with a lot of melon, honey, and lychee flavors. While this isn't our typical favorite sparkling wine we thought it was fun and festive to drink.  We are looking forward to trying a few more Pét-Nats in the near future. 

Overall we thought this wine shipment was good, we will likely try it again once more to see if we find wines that better fit our personal preferences. We would recommend this wine subscription to new wine drinkers or people looking to try something different. We wish they would give a bit more background on where they source their grapes from. One of the wines just said it was sourced from California. Bonus: Winc definitely wins for having the cutest wine branding. 

If you are interested in trying Winc out for yourself use our code to get a free bottle of wine with your shipment (worth $13!). 

Use the code: https://www.clubw.com/iqabcrvz0wi

xxx Ivy & Eve