Why I Love Tasting Room: Personalized Wines At Affordable Prices
Joining a wine club can seem like a no-brainer for those who believe that the only thing better than getting a fun package in the mail is discovering a fantastic new wine.
But the traditional wine club — like the ones you join at a winery — have never felt quite right for me. I've never been to a vineyard, so I don't even know which winery I'd want to receive a regular shipment from. Plus, that limits me - I want to learn and experience other fantastic wines from a variety of vineyards from around the world.
Traditional wine clubs also don't take into account your specific tastes. Well, beyond preferring red or white. The last thing I want is to waste a ton of money on wine I don't care for.
I had given up on the idea of finding a wine club that would work for me until I came across
Tasting Room. The wine subscription service delivers a curated selection of wines from small wineries that you might otherwise never have heard of, right to your door every month! And when I say curated, I mean per-son-al-ized.
You start off taking a quick little online quiz about what you like — dark chocolate, citrus, coffee, you get the idea. Tasting Room then uses those answers to put together a selection of six mini, sample bottles of wine, which you taste, rate, and report on with the Tasting Room website.
They will also send you 6 of their favorite, top-rated full-sized bottles so that you expose your palette to more types of wine. Rating all 12 bottles will allow you to build a more accurate an in-depth profile so that Tasting Room can continue to send you only bottles that they know you will love.
And that process alone made for a surprisingly fun night at home! There are specific steps to follow to make sure you're very clear about which wines you like best, what you like least. This really reassured me that they would only send me bottles they know I would enjoy.
As soon as I finished rating the 6 mini and full-sized bottles, I was excited to see what I'd get in next month's shipment. It arrived after a particularly stressful day at work, so when I opened it up and saw four reds, a rosé, and a white, I couldn't wait to try them! The curation was obvious in every bottle. I had my favorites, of course, but there wasn't a single one that seemed out of place. And that showed in my ratings because I continue rating your wines (you can even add notes!) to make tracking what you love and refining your profile simple.
That's particularly handy because you can look back at your past shipments and order more bottles at any time (as long as your chosen wine is in stock) for — get this — $15 (which is just a couple dollars more than it costs as part of a subscription shipment). It's also great being able to specify that I only want reds coming into the colder months.
Tasting Room also gives you an incredibly in-depth (but still easy to understand) wine profile that tells you the flavors you're drawn to, the varietals that tend to embody those characteristics, where the grapes you prefer are grown, what to eat with those wines, and more. Your wine profile will continue to grow and develop are you continuously rate each and every bottle Tasting Room sends.
Because let's be real. It's one thing to finish your initial tasting and know that you like a specific type of wine from a certain winery; it's something else entirely to gain insight into what it is you like about the wines you ranked highly so that you can talk about it with wine lovers, shop for it, and order in a restaurant with confidence.
Entering your ratings also serves a couple of other purposes: it lets Tasting Room know when you're done with a shipment, for one, plus it helps them curate your next shipment — which will ship about a week after you enter your final rating unless you request different timing.
Tasting Room makes it easy to schedule your shipments for when they're convenient, cancel at any time, and earn credits toward your next shipments when you refer friends! It's such a convenient way to explore tons of wines from the comfort of your own home!
Update: The team at Tasting Room is also extending a special discount to our readers. Follow this link to get your wine tasting kit for just $6.95 (originally $39.95)!
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