Gold Medal Wine Club Review

Ratings Chart

With the Gold Medal Wine Club, the vast majority featured wines earn a minimum of 88 points on the Numerical Rating System, whose scores generally parallel the American educational grading structure, as follows from the description on their site:

96-100 points. An extraordinary classic wine with superior character and style. (Diamond Wine Club)

93-95 points. An outstanding wine with brilliant complexity and highly recommended. (Platinum Wine Club and Diamond Wine Club)

90-92 points. Memorable and truly excellent in style and distinction. Extremely well made. (Platinum Wine Club, Pinot Noir Wine Club, International Wine Club and Gold Wine Club)

88-89 points. Very good, and usually an outstanding value. A wine with special qualities and well recommended. (Gold Wine Club and International Wine Club)

Any wine rated at 85 points or above is generally accepted as a good, if not great, wine, though individual palate and personal preferences should also be considered.

What Stands Out about the Gold Medal Wine Club

The most unique thing about Gold Medal Wine Club is that none of their featured wines are ever bulk or private label wines.  All of the wines they send, no matter which option you choose, have either garnered top medals in major competitions like the California State Fair Wine Competition, or have been very well-received by national wine publications like Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast.

Wine Choices

Gold Medal Wine Club offers six different club choices, all but two with a customizable shipment frequency.

Price

Their six different clubs are designed to feature only the highest quality wines to fit any budget.  The monthly wine club format means that you can receive top-tier wines at up to 40% off retail prices, with additional sale wines featured in their online store (which also offers gift sets, combo cases, and accessories!).

How Often

Four of their clubs can be customized to arrive monthly, every-other-month, or quarterly to fit your needs, and there is also an option to skip a month or gift a month at any time (and an option to opt-out at any time, if you want to switch shipments or need to pause for a while).

The Options

• Gold Wine Club

  • Their original and most popular wine club that consistently ranks well among other popular wine-of-the-month clubs, with superb wines from California’s best boutique wineries.
  • Monthly, every-other-month, or quarterly
  • 2 or 4 bottles of reds only, or 2 or 4 bottles mixed

• Platinum Wine Club

  • A club featuring ultra-premium and collectible wines from California’s top winemakers.
  • Monthly, every-other-month, or quarterly
  • 2 or 4 bottles of reds only, or 2 or 4 bottles mixed

• Garagiste Wine Club

  • Their newest club offering, featuring authentic and artisan wines crafted in small batches by independent winemakers along the West Coast.  These selections are unique and nearly impossible to find in the marketplace.
  • Monthly, every-other-month, or quarterly
  • 2 or 4 bottles of reds, or 2 or 4 bottles mixed

• Pinot Noir Wine Club

  • A pinot-specific club featuring small-production world-class Pinots from top California winemakers and the occasional international winery.
  • Monthly, every-other-month, or quarterly
  • 2 or 4 bottles

• International Wine Club

  • Recommended by Forbes, this club gives you rare access to fabulous wines from family-owned international estates, with the option to add food items from the same region.
  • Quarterly, each shipment from a different country
  • 3 bottles of reds, or 3 bottles mixed

• Diamond Wine Club

  • Their most exclusive club, limited to 500 recipients, featuring only the best-rated wines from California and the world’s most renowned winemakers.
  • Quarterly
  • 2 or 4 bottles of reds, or 2 or 4 bottles mostly reds

More Details

Gold Medal Wine Club features only the highest quality wines from boutique wineries.  While originally founded on Californian and West Coast wineries, they have long since expanded to regions in every corner of the world.  As a rule, they feature only authentic, family-owned wineries that handcraft their wines in small batches to ensure that you experience only the best wines—so unique that many of them are nearly impossible to find in the marketplace.

Each shipment delivers your selection of 2-4 unique wines right to your door, and includes a beautiful print issue detailing the history of the featured winery and particulars on the selected wines, as well as fun facts, recipes, interviews, and wine industry news.

You can opt for just one of their regular shipments or join their membership rewards program to receive benefits in their online Wine Store, as well as take advantage of their Gold Medal Wine Club coupons.  They also have an unlimited refer-a-friend program, which gifts you a bonus bottle for each friend who joins!

Gold Medal Wine Club is well-known for their superb customer service, with a live chat feature and quick response time.  Reviews of both customer service and the product itself are overwhelmingly positive, with people both loving the options for sending gifts and enjoying the wines themselves, saying of the monthly deliveries, “It’s like Christmas 12 times a year!”  Many members have been receiving their shipments for years—some are even loyal from the very beginnings of Gold Medal Wine Club, it’s that good!