Okay, so here's the skinny on these big-name wine clubs! Virgin is a multinational corporation dealing in media, transportation, and a host of other industries. They don't have a liquor license, and they don't want to get into that business, so they've contracted with a third party to fulfill their wine club orders/shipments. The third party is Direct Wines Inc, a division of Laithwaite's. Laithwaite's is a successful wine club provider in the UK that's been providing the wines for The Sunday Times Wine Club for many years to a HUGE membership.

Direct Wines also runs the WSJwine Wine Club (Wall Street Journal wine club), the Zagat Wine Club, and has their own wine club called 4 Seasons Wine Club. They source wines from around the world, and then share their great finds with their club members, and their clients' club members, too.

It's important you know this! It's not a sign that the quality will be bad or that you shouldn't trust Direct Wine's wine clubs... Virgin trusts them with their reputation and we think you can trust them, too.

Now, onto normal Wine Club value-talk. The introductory offer is a great way for you to try-before-you-buy. You're getting a case of good-quality wine at around $6 per bottle, plus a free corkscrew, and the ever-important tasting notes.

Each quarter you get another case of good-quality wine for $139.99. Because of the way Direct Wines works, there is some crossover between what's available for distribution to wine club members across the wine clubs, but that each wine club gets a few unique bottles to set it apart from the others. It's unclear whether or not the Zagat Wine Club has any wines picked by anyone at Zagat itself though.

We like quarterly case-clubs because you save on shipping and it's better for the environment to send out fewer shipments each year.

Something we noticed: the Mixed case appears to be 8 reds and 4 whites. You can also choose Red-only and White-only if you want.

Last Updated: 2/9/2011