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Vinesse Wines Sparkling Wine Club

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The Sparkling Wine club from Vinesse Wines is a unique club as you will only receive sparkling wines.

Sparkling wines from the Old World (including France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal) as well as the New World (California (Sonoma Valley), Australia, and South America) are delivered right to your door with the Sparkling Wine Club from Vinesse Wines.

PROS:

  • Sparkling Wines only
  • Tasting Notes for each bottle
  • At-A-Glance section of Tasting Notes
  • Fantastic customer service

CONS:

  • No easy gift-giving option
  • Shipping is confusing and expensive

Sparkling Wine Club

All About Sparkling Wine

Before we get into the club, let's talk about Sparkling Wines (but if you want to skip right to our review, click here). Many people searching for a Champagne of the Month Club would be happy with a Sparkling Wine Club, such as the club offered by Vinesse Wines.

It's important to know that sparkling wines can be dry or sweet. The wine “sparkles” thanks to intense levels of carbon dioxide, which remains dormant under pressure but as soon as you pop the cork, the bubbles appear.

Popular Types of Sparkling Wine

Champagne

Champagne-Ardenne region locator mapAll Champagnes are sparkling wines, but not all sparkling wines are Champagnes. To be a true Champagne, the sparkling wine must come from the Champagne region in France – it's that simple. If you're buying champagne over other sparkling wines, be prepared to spend a bit more.

Prosecco

Prosecco is an Italian sparkling wine (from the Prosecco region in Northern Italy, made from Prosecco grapes) which is becoming more and more popular. These days, Prosecco is challenging Champagne for the top sparkling wine spot, probably because it's slightly sweeter and can be considerably less expensive than Champagne. One of the wines in my Vinesse Sparkling Wine Club was a Prosecco: 2016 Bervini 1955.

Cava

Cava has been called “the Prosecco of Spain” and can be either white or rose sparkling wine from the Catalonia region of Spain. The word “Cava” is Catalan for “cave” (or “cellar”) and long ago winemakers aged their sparkling wines in these caves.

Opening Sparkling Wine

Unlike typical wine, you're not going to use a corkscrew to open your sparkling wine. Because the wine is under pressure, sparkling wine is corked differently. You'll find a wire basket holding the cork in place. So to open sparkling wine:

  1. Remove any foil, if present
  2. Remove the wire basket – hold the neck of the bottle with your thumb on top of the cork, holding it in place. Untwist the wire basket and remove it. Of course, your thumb is in the way so slowly move it as you remove the wire basket but be careful the cork doesn't fly out!
  3. Place a cloth napkin over the cork – or a dish towel. You should now have your dominant hand on the neck of the wine bottle, over the napkin with your thumb on the cork. Your other hand is holding the base of the bottle.
  4. Slowly remove the cork – you should be able to slowly pull the cork from the bottle. The slower you go, the slower the carbon dioxide will bubble up.

Or, remove the wire basket and push up on the cork, letting it pop out, leaving a dent in your ceiling and a quarter of the wine on the floor. Your kids will laugh; your wife will not. (Speaking from experience)

Wine Glasses for Sparkling Wine

As with all wines, the type of sparkling wine you are drinking impacts the glass you choose:

Flute

For dry (Brut) sparkling wines, choose a Flute. The shape of a Flute helps retains the bubbles longer.

Tulip & Wide Tulip

The wider bowl of a Tulip collects the aroma of the wine more than a Flute. If your sparkling wine is aged, you can use a Wide Tulip.

Coupe Glass

Popular in the 1950s (and with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby), the shape of a Coupe Glass (short and wide) is the exact opposite of a Flute. Thus, the bubbles disperse quickly making the wine taste fruitier and softer.

Now that you know all about sparkling wine, let's talk about the Sparkling Wine Club from Vinesse:

 

Sparkling Wine Club Tasting NotesWhat's in the Box

My shipment (delivered in April of 2018) included 3 different sparkling wines:

  • 2016 Bervini 1955 “Extra Dry” Italy Prosecco
  • 2013 Bailly Lapierre “Egarade” Cremant de Bourgogne, France Brut
  • NV Drappier Champagne, France “Cart d'Or” Brut

Along with these wines were tasting notes for each. The tasting notes from Vinesse are some of my favorite: on 1/2 sheet of paper, they're easy to keep with the bottles of wine. A few paragraphs tell the story of the winery, region and particular wine. Then an “At-A-Glance” section gives me the information I'm looking for when choosing a wine: when to drink it and what to pair the wine with. Also of importance, the notes include a Wine Re-Order number so if I like this bottle, I can go to vinesse.com, enter this number and be taken right to a re-order form.

The Membership

When ordering your sparkling wine club, choose the number of bottles you'd like per shipment (3, 6, or 12) and how often you'd like to receive shipments (2 or 5 times per year). The cost of the club varies with each shipment from $24 – $29 per bottle, plus tax & shipping.

Shipping

While Vineese ships this club to most states, you need to read the fine print to understand your true shipping cost. Your base shipping is calculated from the number of bottles in your shipment (3 bottles is $21, 6 bottles $25 and 12 bottles $34) but then there are special surcharges for certain states.

NY, NJ, ME, DC, MA, IN, AZ, TX, KS, MT, DE, RI, GA, FL, MI, CT, NC, NH, OH, SC, VA, VT, and WV shipments must add an additional 17% to their entire order total. PA and IL shipments add a 20% surcharge while AK and HI add 30%. Any other states get an 8.5% surcharge.

Finally, if you're shipping to a residential address, add another $2.50 per shipment (this is another reason we recommend having your wine club shipped to your workplace).

Let's see how this works out with my shipment: my wines, individually, come out to $91 but the maximum range for this club is $29 per bottle so we'll say that's $87 ($29 x 3). I'm in New York, so there's sales tax (8.75% where I am) plus shipping 3 bottles is $21. Then add the 17% surcharge, plus $2.50 because my shipment was sent to my house:

$87 + 8.75% + 21 + 17% + $2.50 = $137.76!

This is not a cheap wine club, but when it comes to sparkling wine clubs there are not many options and the wines and supplemental materials justify the price.

Vinesse Sparkling Wine Club

Vinesse Sparkling Wine Club as a Gift

Vinesse does not have a method for sending a gift membership other than changing the shipping address when ordering the club. If you want to send 3 shipments, set yourself a reminder to cancel your membership after the 3rd one ships. Other gift options, including gift wrapping and gift cards, are not available.

Summary

The Sparkling Wine club from Vinesse Wines is a unique club as you will only receive sparkling wines.

 

Canceling

You may cancel your membership at any time, for any reason, by calling support at 1-800-823-5527 6 AM to 4 PM Pacific Time, Monday – Friday.

Specification: Vinesse Wines Sparkling Wine Club

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