Winning Wines From Winc - My First Box
What Is Winc? {formerly Club W}
Winc is an online wine subscription service. (I'm just going to let that sink in for a moment)
No, you didn't misread that. There is actually a website that you can visit, that will measure your taste profile through an online quiz, and that will send you wine that will match your preferences every month! (Don't worry, you can also order extra bottles in between subscriptions)
Still not enough to get you to check it out? What if I told you that if you use this link, you can get one of your bottles for free?!
How I Heard About Winc
So one of my friends brought a delicious bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, it was a label that I had never heard of before: Outer Sounds! I usually reach for a bottle of Cloudy Bay, Matua, or White Haven, since I know that I like white wines from the Marlborough region of New Zealand. I find these wines to be, overall, crispy, lightly fruity, and with none of the buttery-ness typically found in a Chardonnay or California white. Rusty's bottle of Outer Sounds was no different! The wine poured the perfect, see-through palest gold that I look for (I promise that I'm not a wine snob! I just understand that the darker, more yellow wines, will have the richer, bolder flavor that I'm not a fan of), and tasted so crisp and refreshing. Immediately, i imagined laughing on a girls weekend, sitting on adirondack chairs, and overlooking the beach. This is exactly what I look for in a white wine!
It's rare that one of my friends brings a bottle with a label so foreign to me, especially such a cute one, and from my favorite region- I thought that I definitely would have noticed it at the store. Outer Sounds, Rusty told me, was from a website that he had tried called Winc. I had heard of it before, of course, but had never met anyone who had tried it, and as soon as Rusty sent me a link for the website, I signed up!
Signing Up
Using the referral link that Rusty sent me, I hopped on to the website and followed the incredibly easy promps. All it took was a short quiz (answering questions about what tastes I prefer, never directly asking about wine types), deciding that I would like 2 bottles of white wine and 1 bottle of red wine, and typing in my billing & shipping info. BAM! Done. Deciding to get a bottle of red wine felt a little risky, typically, I reach for a white, but I would like to learn to enjoy a nice bottle of red wine too, so this seemed like a good way to expand my taste buds.
My package arrived!
Since it is alcohol, someone over 21 has to be available to sign off, but in an apartment, there is always a leasing office member available. Winc does a great job ensuring their precious cargo stays safe in transit. The bottles are packaged in a snug insert, inside of a marked box, wrapped in packing-paper, inside of a larger, unmarked box.
Your monthly shipment will come with the Winc Journal. It tells you all about flavor profiles, what to look for, details not just about the Winc program, varieties of grapes, but some pretty in-depth articles about wines.
Do you ever have that moment when you're looking at a wine list and know that you've tasted a few of the wines on the menu, but cannot for the life of you remember which you loved & which made you gag? That definitely happens to me, so I usually fallback on a boring old favorite, instead of being a little adventurous & getting the one that I tried before but loved! My online account is super helpful, I can go on and review my past ratings and notes, even if the restaurant doesn't have the same bottle (since Winc offers unique labels), I can at least remember the reasons why I liked or didn't like a certain blend or grape. This will definitely come in handy when I go to place any specific order through Winc.
I was so lucky! I got the exact bottle of Outer Sounds in my first Winc box without even requesting it, to me, this means that the quiz really works because I never specifically stated that I wanted a Suav Blanc.
The Wines In My Box
Outer Sounds 2016 Sauvignon Blanc
Marlborough, New Zealand
I feel like I covered how much I love this wine in the first part of the article. Basically, this bottle alone confirmed that Winc is awesome.
Rogue Admirals 2015 Red Blend
Limestone Coast, Australia
This screw-top red blend was absolutely delicious!
I don't normally reach for a red, partly because I find their aroma to be too overpowering that it makes it hard to separate from the taste and enjoy. However, this Rogue Admirals from Australia didn't have that at all. It had a little bit of that smell that you would associate with a red wine, but it doesn't overpower the flavor at all. This wine was very fruity and not bitter at all! Totally a good way to warm up to reds.
Passarola 2015 White Blend
Portugal
This white blend was a little stronger than a white that I usually reach for. I would most compare it to a pinot grigio. Then again, I'm just beginning my wine tasting adventure, it could just be what mediterranean grapes taste like. I wouldn't call it crisp or fruity, but it also did not have any buttery-ness or oak-y-ness. Again, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this wine. While it has a super cool-looking label, because it's a white blend, I wouldn't normally grab it off a shelf. But through Winc's wisdom, I found a few wine that I can look for!
Pricing it all out:
I'll be honest, at $13/bottle (if you join the website, $26 regularly), it is not a cheap bottle of wine. I don't know, maybe if I was a few years older it would be my average priced bottle. But let's be realistic, I'm perfectly happy going to Costco and buying a Kirkland Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc for $5.99 (it's honestly delicious--we've done blind taste tests to compare it to other Marlborough SBs). If you ever see me refer to a bottle of "Kirkle" it's what we call Kirkland alcohol, started off as a silly joke and somehow has stuck around. Despite how much I love my Costco wine, I will absolutely be ordering another box of wines from Winc.
Have you tried it? What do you think? What have been your favorite bottles?