Possibly the best Christmas present for wine lovers

Every year in our family we circulate ideas for potential Christmas presents in advance and a couple of year’s ago mine included a request for the one-off £40 life membership to The Wine Society.  Fortunately, my daughter-in-law took up the challenge and I can honestly say it's one of the best presents I've had.  It really is a present that just keeps on giving.

The Wine Society has been around since the 1870s when it was founded as a mutual organisation.  In other words, there are no shareholders taking a cut and all profit goes back into the pot for the benefit of the members, with similar principles to, for example, the original mutual building societies.   Once you have paid the £40 fee for life membership you have access to an incredible 300 wines or so ranging from basic everyday wines for £6.25 such as this inexpensive Spanish wine to some really world-class bottles most of us can only dream of.  In the past 12 months the society has introduced free next-day delivery with no minimum number of bottles (so just one if that's all you want) and you get £20 off your first order which, in effect, reduces your lifetime subscription to a mere £20.  The society has such faith in the quality of its wines and expertise of its buyers that there is also a remarkable refund guarantee.  As well as refunding you for any wine that is faulty, even if a wine is just not to your taste you can get credit or a refund.  How good is that?   

But the real fun starts when you start to explore the website.  There are various options to search by region, grape, occasion etc or just scroll through the lot.  Each wine has a well-informed description and price and is usually followed by a number of members' reviews. As you salivate over the descriptions the 'Add to Wishlist' function becomes very useful and quickly builds into a comprehensive collection of ideas for future orders.   My Wishlist currently stands at 27 bottles!

Given the number of multi-buy offers at the moment in the supermarkets I recently decided to make up an order of some of the Wine Society's cheapest bottles to test their value for money and how they compared.  The total bill for 6 bottles delivered to my door the following day was £43.15, making an average of roughly £7.20 a bottle.  Let's look at three of them.

Les Pierres Bordes, Marsanne-Viognier, Pays d'Oc 2021

I have had this wine a couple of times now and for £6.95 it is a bargain.  It is made in the Pays d'Oc area in SW France combining two distinct grapes, Marsanne and Viognier, traditionally used for white wine in the Rhône Valley.  It's a refreshing, fruity, yet soft wine which is very quaffable.  As one of the members notes in his review, it is far more interesting than his previous favourite Cono Sur Bicicleta Viognier from Chile which is in all the supermarkets and at the time of writing £7 in Sainsburys.  1-0 to the Wine Society!

Domaine Laborie, Pays d'Oc 2021

This red wine comes from the same supplier as Les Pierres Bordes above.  Again it comes from the southwest of France in the Languedoc region, the source of so many well-made affordable everyday drinking wines at the moment.  It's a straightforward  blend of Carignan, Grenache and Merlot and there's a lovely short video on YouTube where wine buyer Marcel Orford-Williams is extolling its virtues as a young, fruity, easy-to drink wine.  I guess it is up against something like Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Gaillac Rouge (currently £8) but at just £6.75 it surely wins hands down.

Cabernet Franc, Pays d'Oc, Domaine du Bosc 2021

Domaine du Bosc is a regular supplier of wines to the Wine Society.  At the moment there are two reds (this one and a Merlot) and two whites (a Viognier and a Grenache Blanc) and while none of them would get a prize for the label it is the wine inside the bottle that attracts attention.  I was drawn to this wine on the website because I love Cabernet Franc wines from the Loire Valley and, while this wine is from the Languedoc rather than the Loire it is never going to be as good as a Bourgueil or a Chinon, but at the price (£7.75) it is quite a bit cheaper.  Interestingly, cabernet franc at Domaine du Bosc is usually used for blending, but apparently the fruit in 2021 was so good they decided to make a separate wine from it.  Unfortunately, I cannot find a suitably comparable wine in Sainsbury's and the most obvious supermarket Cabernet France is probably in Waitrose, the fine Les Nivières, Saumur from the Loire which I also love.   That is priced at £9.99 so once again, even with this less-than-perfect comparison, the Wine Society prevails again.  That's a clean sweep then at 3-0.