The Auswine Forum

Hi All

I am interested in joining a wine plan and seems like the 2 popular one are:

1. The Wine Society
2. The Cellarmasters

Any recommendations on which is the better wine plan (quality of wine, value for money ?)

Thank you

Dear Hysterical,

Try to suppress your interest in either of these, the bargains are few these days. You would do much better to look at what is recommended here, back your own hunches and mix up your own tasting dozens from Auswine or other online/street retailers.

I used to be in the Cellarmasters club for a few years up until about 2000/2001, but not in a wine plan. I stopped being a member when I found I was sending back more than I was keeping. If you really must join CM, then politely decline to pay any fees for them to bombard you with advertising, I never paid any membership fees for the years I was a member.

I check out The Wine Society from time to time, some of their own-label wines are probably good value, but the other stuff can be obtained cheaper elsewhere. You may find some advantages with TWS if you want to attend some of their tastings, events, courses etc, where members get a discount.

Email or PM me for some more detailed info/suggestions if you are interested.

I'm in Cellarmasters.

My advice is choose carefully.

Most of the year prices are reasonable but not great. 3-4 times a year you get a good buy.

Best part is $8 delivery no matter how many cases you order.

Join the plans that you can skip an order if you don;t like the look or the price of the wines they are gonna send you.

And remember that the lables are confusing. The wines from recognised wineries are different wines than the wines the wineries release commercially in lots of cases.

Some of Cellarmasters own lables do perform quite well in shows and in Winestate.

The first place I saw wines like Kalleske and Dog Ridge etc were through cellarmasters.

Dear Hysterical, I can only say you've done the right thing consulting here on the forum.

I wouldn't go near any of these plans, they provide some fairly pedestrian wine from obscure or own brand labels or if the wine is from a recognised winery it is almost always something they've blended up for Cellarmasters and you can be assured it's not that wineries best wine, that goes into a wineries own label.

AS for their performance in shows and magazines like Winestate, let me just say that having tried the wines they enter in the shows and then trying the wine they sell you festooned with medals, they often don't seem to be the same wine!

As for Kalleske appearing first at Cellarmasters, all that happened here was they bought grapes from the Kalleske family vineyards then used the Kalleske name on the label. The wine in the bottle had nothing to do with the Kalleske brand of the masterfull Troy Kalleske.

Please speak to Brian (aka Red Bigot) as offered above, he'll put you right.

If you wanted to receive a regular shipment of really excellent wines, why not contact Gavin, the board owner here at Auswine. They would not only be "real" wineries but they would blow the stuff from the other clubs off the table. Oh, I think it's freight free too, not the $8 Cellarmasters charge.

Hopefully we've saved you from a life of pedestrian swill.

Hi

A big thank you to all who responded. Glad that i ask before committing myself to the wine plans.

Maybe something that Gavin should considered ? A regular wine plan similar to CM or TWS ? You have (i would dare say) great panel of taster readily available here.

Cheers

Have a look here:

http://www.auswine.com.au/category.asp?CtgID=1047

Some nice mixed cases and 6-packs.

I won't name names on a forum hosted by another wine e-tailer, but there's a store in Melbourne which does fairly interesting mixed dozens/plans, and a store in Sydney which offers reasonably good value mixed dozens and plans. And, of course, Gavin here. Better than the mediocre and fully-priced swill from the big clubs.

Kieran