A wine club offers you the opportunity to experience wines you might never come across in your own neighbourhood shops. The best wine clubs function by offering you themes or price ranges for starters, and you can work your way “sideways” from there.
Many of the clubs ask you to pay a membership fee—you can pay an annual fee up front, or you can ask to be billed monthly or quarterly. You will then receive wines that fit your chosen preferences on a monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly basis. The best wine clubs, however, will introduce you to selections outside of your indicated preferences. This enables you to develop a well rounded knowledge base about wines. You are exposed to varietals or categories that you might ordinarily decline to sample.
A wine club helps those who lack knowledge about types of wines and what wines to serve with specific food categories. It also means you will have constant exposure to a wide variety of wines at the best prices available.
Think of your local wine supplier—in some states you must go to state-run stores, and in other states you can find wines at your grocery store. Stand in the aisle at the store and look at the options: They are endless! One wine might cost just a few bucks, and other bottles sell for much, much more. How do you know when a wine is worth the extra cost? What can you learn from the label markings?
The best wine clubs teach you the basics and then beyond. For example, you can learn about wine acidity and sugar content. Acidic wines have a sharp or tart taste. Vintners work very hard to reach just the perfect level of acidity with the grapes they are using. If acidity is too low, the wine tastes dull and flat. If the acidity is too high, the taste goes beyond sharp to an unpleasant sour taste. You will hear a wine described as aggressive when its taste really pushes the limit beyond an acceptable level.
There are two types of acids in wines—tartaric and malic. Both of these acids develop in the grape as it grows. In warmer climates, acidity levels are lower. If the wine contains too much vinegar, the acidity is referred to as volatile. The best wine clubs will offer you red wine selections with acidity of 0.6 to 0.7. White wines range a little higher. Anything at or near 1.0 will be too tart.
The wine’s pH is related to its acidity. Remember that higher acidity level is linked to a lower pH, and vice versa.
Sugar content also plays an important role. It plays against the acidity, and it is naturally higher in grapes grown in warmer climates. Look for sugar content to be expressed as a percentage or degrees of Brix. The label or wine notes might indicate sugar content to be at 24% or 24 ° Brix. If the wine is sweeter, a higher acidity level is acceptable; dessert wines will even be above 1.0.
Top wine growers know how to combat unfavourable climate and soil conditions. Under certain circumstances, it is acceptable to add tartaric acid during the fermentation process, to offset unusual weather conditions. The addition of sugar is permitted in some regions, but not, for example, in California.
The best wine clubs will provide offerings in which the character of grape type is preserved and enhanced. You will learn how to evaluate a wine for its finest features, and then to share your knowledge with others.
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