What are Wine Clubs?
Wine Clubs are a relationship between wine consumers and wineries providing benefits to both wineries and customers. Wineries have learned that Wine Clubs provide opportunities to build long-term relationships with their patrons. It becomes more of a business-to-customer relationship. During the Pandemic, Wine Clubs saved many wineries in Texas from going out of business! Wineries provide valuable perks to customers while customers show allegiance to wineries as preferred customers. In other words, Wine Clubs are mutually beneficial to both wineries and wine consumers. Wine Club members are repeat customers and normally purchase several bottles of wine in one purchase. As a result, wineries normally offer discounts of 10% and more to these loyal customers. The vast majority of Wine Clubs at Texas wineries are free to wine consumers with the understanding that these customers buy special boutique packages of wines on a periodic basis. These wine purchases are normally customized to suit the customer tastes and desires. For instance, wine packages can be either all Red Wines, White Wines, or a mix of the two along with some Roses’. In many instances, the wineries will offer unique, small lot, boutique wines to their wine customers at low costs. Most wineries will host a quarterly Wine Club Day with special entertainment and some with complimentary tastings, usually an ounce or two of wine (not a full glass) to entice their Wine Club Members to pick up their wines. These pick-up parties are great events to socialize and spend a fun afternoon in the romantic ambiance of a winery. For those Wine Club Members who cannot make these parties, the wine can be shipped via UPS or FED-EX at a nominal charge. Many wineries also add perks to these special wine club packages like special recipes for foods to pair with those selected wines. Other perks like complimentary tastings for Wine Club Member Guests or a winery corkscrew are also provided. These perks will vary from winery to winery. It is important from a financial perspective for these wineries to have Wine Clubs since it provides stability for the wineries and an incentive to produce special wine lots for the Wine Club Members. These special productions of wines are the best wines that these wineries produce. A winery with a thousand members will mean that the winery has a demand for at least one thousand cases of wine per year. The quarterly wine shipments for Wine Club Members at three bottles per quarter per member provides a great incentive for wineries to provide those perks. Imagine if the Wine Club Members wanted six bottles per quarter instead of just three. This is a huge financial incentive for wineries to make their Wine Clubs successful by attracting Members with more incentives and perks.
Most wineries have wine clubs, whether in California or Texas. Even the smallest of wineries can participate by cooperative organizations with other small wineries to provide a larger base of customer and more perks. California has several Wine Clubs that provide a variety of different style California wines. Texas Fine Wine is a consortium of four Texas wineries dedicated to producing wines from only Texas grapes. Bending Branch Winery, Duchman Family Winery, Pedernales Cellars and Spicewood Vineyard make up this group which has been dedicated to producing only Texas wines for the last ten years. Check out their Christmas collection of wines at www.TexasFineWine.com.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming, Wine Clubs might be a great option to stock up your wine cellar and to tell your family, friends, and clients THANK YOU and Merry Christmas!