Wine clubs promise the same thing. Pay a monthly fee and get mystery bottles, so that you can skip the part where you stand in a shop squinting at labels and pretending you know what “structured” means. Or, if you’re like me, you buy wine based on what the label looks like alone.

And some clubs deliver on that. Some of them, though, are just a subscription box with a wine cork glued to the lid.

So we asked sommeliers and wine-industry pros which clubs they’d actually recommend. Here are 12 of them, plus what the pros say separates a real club from a curated cash-grab scam.

How to Actually Vet Wine Clubs

While the pros all had their own specific picks below, there were a few things the pros all agreed on, regardless of which club they recommended.

• Price-check the per-bottle cost against what you’d spend on something similar at a restaurant, since you’re paying for the wine plus the research and delivery. 
• Email a company a few questions before signing up. Thoughtful answers mean they care, generic ones mean keep looking. 
• Flexibility is also a good sign. A club that locks you into shipments you don’t want is less of a perk, and more of a warning. 
• If nobody involved can tell you who actually made the wine in your box, that’s the clearest red flag there is. You could have just as much luck blindly buying a mass-produced bottle of wine from your local corner liquor store.

With those vetting strategies, you can be well-positioned to head off in search of the perfect wine club for you. Here are a few clubs to help kick off your search.

Plonk Wine Club

We’ll kick off this list with a VICE pick. Plonk Wine Club is an organic and biodynamic club curated by WSET- and American Sommelier Association-certified founder Etty Klein, who specializes in hunting down indigenous grape varieties from under-the-radar regions like Croatia, Slovenia, Greece and Hungary. Choose red, white or mixed, in 4, 6 or 12-bottle shipments, with free shipping and detailed tasting notes plus recipe pairings included.

King’s Wine Club

King’s Wine Club comes recommended by Grant Reynolds, sommelier and founder of NYC wine shop Parcelle, which helps fulfill this club for the Soho restaurant King. Reynolds says it consistently mixes “benchmark producers and new discoveries,” making a solid pick if you want a restaurant wine director’s palate without the reservation.

Parcelle Wine Drop

Reynolds’ own company’s club, Parcelle Wine Drop offers three sommelier-picked bottles a month for $95, or $150 for a bigger pour, shipped nationwide from Parcelle’s NYC cellar. Full disclosure: this is Reynolds recommending his own product, named alongside King’s club. Personally, I‘m drawn to the artwork on the website… similar to how I select wines because of the label, I guess.

Primal Wine Club

Primal Wine Club is a Los Angeles-based natural wine club shipping small-batch, biodynamic bottles from producers around the world, with a choice of mixed, red, white or orange selections. Recommended by Dylan Dinsmore, a WSET-2 certified sommelier and bar manager at FiNO in Denver, for drinkers who want global range without sacrificing low-intervention winemaking.

Orange Glou

A New York club built entirely around skin-contact and pét-nat wines (which are naturally sparkling), Orange Glou was founded by sommelier Doreen Winkler. Also a Dinsmore pick, it’s a good option if you already know you like orange wine and want a curator who specializes in nothing else.

Mondo Vino

Dinsmore’s local pick is Mondo Vino—a Denver bottle shop’s in-house natural wine club, picking three hand-selected bottles a month curated by owner Duey Kratzer (Guild of Master Sommeliers). Worth knowing about if you want a club with a real storefront behind it, not just a warehouse.

The Good Sip

Paige Comrie, WSET Level 3-certified wine educator behind Wine with Paige, also recommends her own quarterly club, and says so upfront: “I’m not going to pretend to be neutral about it.” The Good Sip club is built around small-production winemakers she can trace back to a real person, if that kind of production process is what appeals to you.

The Set Wines

The Set Wines is a Sta. Rita Hills club recommended by Katy Rogers, WSET-certified founding partner at wine marketing agency Likely Story Strategies (formerly 15 years at Jackson Family Wines). There’s no contracts or minimums with this one. Members choose bottle count and timing, earn points toward tastings and merch, and can taste directly with the winemaker on-site—great for if you’re local to the area!

Niner Wine Estates

Another Rogers pick, based in Paso Robles, Niner Wine Estates offers customizable 4, 6 or 12-bottle shipments three times a year with free shipping, plus 20–25% off wine, food and merch at the winery’s on-site restaurant. Members also get access to a free, property-wide members-only week each year.

Austin Hope Winery

Rogers’ third pick, and the one she frames less around club mechanics and more around treatment, is Austin Hope Winery. She says the Paso Robles winery trains staff (using the hospitality book Unreasonable Hospitality) to add personal touches, like an extra bottle tied to something a member mentioned on a past visit.

Madson Wines

Madson Wines comes recommended by Kenneth Murray, sommelier at Pebble Beach Food & Wine and Director of Wine Programs at The Apis Hotel & Restaurant in Kenosha, WI. This Santa Cruz Mountains producer offers single-vineyard, often single-varietal bottlings, with some wines (like its Chenin Blanc and Aligoté) sold exclusively to club members.

Champagne Happy Hour

Murray’s most niche recommendation is Champagne Happy Hour—a husband-and-wife-run club sourcing exclusively from small grower-producers in Champagne. He calls it “a CSA box for bubbles,” and says it may be the best value in Champagne clubs specifically, if not wine clubs generally.