Join Your Perfect California Wine Club: What to Expect at Pickup Parties
The Value of Wine Club Pickup Events
One perk of California wine club membership is the pickup party. As a club member you can opt to have your wine shipped to you. Or you might attend the winery pick up party. These events range from the extravagant to simple, all depending on the winemaker’s bottom line and desire to keep their club members happy.
Our measure of a good wine club membership is predicated upon pick up parties with a band, entertainment, food and plenty of wine available for tasting.
We’ve participated in a number of clubs and their pickup party values are all over the place. Some wineries give you a three day window to visit, sample and pick up your wine. Some wineries will have a one day open house with paired finger food for their wines. A few wineries even charge club members to attend and pick up their orders. Then there’s the club we like, a complimentary party, big-band, lots of food, lots of wine for everybody having a good time.
As the wine industry struggles we’re finding pick up parties are losing their pizzazz. Winery’s diminishing cash flow is weighing heavily on winemakers struggling with Direct to Consumer Sales (DTC) down 25% over the past two years. We’ve documented this in multiple stories. The newsletter Terrain by Chris Bitter researchs the industry and finds, “My calculations suggest wineries had nearly 30% more inventory than the market should ideally carry at midyear 2025.” He adds winery inventories hold 84 Million extra cases of wine compared to projected sales. That’s 1.08 trillion bottles awaiting mixed case sales at your local winery. Keep your eyes out for BOGO sales. There are other factors effecting wine makers. The glut of wine and sipping slow down mean we are losing wineries in every California appellation.
This puts pressure on all wineries and changes their entertainment budgets. Sales are not as robust as they were during the Covid years’ of pantry overstocking.
| ‘Be sure to inquire about format. Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions. Is there food? Is there entertainment? Do we sample all the wines in the shipment? Can we sample your other wines as well? What is the cost?’ |
We had a chance to Visit Scott Harvey Wines’ pickup party open house over the summer. There was finger food, not much music and it was a low key day with great hospitality by tasting room manager Robin.
The best part of the event (except for the wine) was the owners arriving in their 1953 green MG convertible and then working the crowd pouring wine for visitors and guests. Scott & Jana Harvey have been in the wine business for quite a while (recently finishing their 52nd harvest) and they know how to work the crowd and thank their members.
Scott came by a number of times inquiring about wine in our glass. “Oh” he would ask, “Have you tasted Mountain Syrah? What about the Estate Temperanillo?”
He would show up promptly with that bottle of wine to taste. All total we sampled 10 wines (spitting and pouring wine into a pour bucket of course) and enjoyed a very broad selection tasty wines.
What did we sample?
2023 Sauvignon Blanc $30 ✰+
2022 1869 Zinfandel $65 ✰++
2022 Toy Vineyard Barbera $59 ✰++
2021 Mountains select Barbera $35 ✰+
2021 Estate Tempranillo $59 ✰+
2021 J&S Reserve Syrah $49 ✰+
2021 Cattledrale Barbara $119 ✰+
2020 Petite Sirah $59 ✰+
2021 Inzinerator 12 pack Cans $96 ✰+/✰
2022 Mountain Syrah $35 ✰+
When you consider joining a wine club, certainly inquire about their pickup party. If you don’t live in wine country there are some with out of town events. Cass Wines comes to mind with pickup parties in Los Angeles, Walnut Creek, San Diego and Ventura.
Be sure to inquire about format and perks of club events. Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions. Is there food? Is there entertainment? Do we sample all the wines in the shipment? Can we sample your other wines as well? What is the cost?
It’s your money and your membership. Make sure you’re asking questions to verify whether or not the club meets your needs.
Back to Scott Harvey Wines. They’ve moved their tasting room into the former Turley Wine facility right next door to their former facility in the Shenandoah Valley Appelation of Gold Country. It’s a worthy wine, a worthy wine purveyor and you should visit the region that’s very similar to Paso Robles. You owe it to yourself to visit.
Some notes on our wine ranking system.
Bill & Erin Hodge write about California Wine, the estates & winemakers producing them and educational information about Vino. Living in California Wine Country provides a front row seat to the places you want to visit the most here in the Golden State.
– -✰ means -What’s next on your list of wines
-✰ means -Not liking it too much
✰ means -We’ll drink this wine, especially if it’s hosted!
✰+ means -You’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine.
✰+ + means -We’re hooked and we’re going to buy this wine.
When you see -✰/✰+ with a slash, it means we disagree.
