Learning the Ropes Monthly with The Wine List *

*Post contains some PR samples.

If you’ve been a reader here for a while, you won’t be a stranger to the concept of The Wine List as I’ve mentioned it a few times, but if you’re new, let me catch you up.

When Josh Lachkovic, founder of The Wine List, realised that less young people were drinking wine he felt he needed to do something to educate them. He wanted to ditch the ‘wine snob’ persona for those that know about wine and to get rid of the pretentious image that wine sometimes has around it as there is a huge gap; wine knowledge today is held by a top 0.1% of its drinkers and it needs to be fed through to everyone that wants to know it.

So, The Wine List was born, Josh completed his WSET (wine training!) and then started a newsletter with the intention of sharing wine knowledge and tasting notes this is where I became interested having been signed up to this since the beginning. It then became apparent that there were a lot of people who were hungry to know more and so the monthly subscription boxes began.

It’s not just a generic wine box that rocks up to your house each month, no, this is a learning experience. Within your box you  are provided with the learning materials needed to learn about wine in general and the wine you have to try that month.

This wine that you’re provided with is incredible and interesting; ones you’ve likely never heard of so you can practice your new techniques each month. This is a wine subscription focused on learning and boy, have we learnt a lot since we signed up during the star of lockdown after my dad had been a subscription member for as long as I can remember and we wanted to do Zoom based wine tastings!

Every wine subscription box you receive comes with tasting notes, a booklet that teaches you about a new aspect of wine tasting, a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white wine.

I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t heard of any of the wines you get to try, which is part of the appeal of this venture we’re on! My parents will often travel for wine, I spent a lot of my childhood in vineyards in Spain, we have been members of various wine clubs and have done a vast array of wine tastings between us, but we are always intrigued by what arrives in our boxes each month!

We take time out to sit down, read our booklets, learn about the wine we are drinking, in fact, we make an evening of it with snacks, friends (when we’re allowed) and some good music! Oh, and of course, we take time to drink our Italian wine amongst the olive trees on my parent’s terrace to really feel authentic!

On the tasting notes you’re given, you can fill in your thoughts on the wine you’re drinking; you have sections for acidity, tannins, dry to sweet, body, finish and colour, below that you have wheels for the aroma profile which are so helpful for when you’re getting to grips with what scents you are getting from your wines and then a notes section where we usually add our thoughts on taste, whether we’d purchase again and anything else we think of! Then to finish up there’s a little face in the top right-hand corner that you complete the smile to show how you felt about the wine overall. It’s a really thorough system.

We love being part of The Wine List and have thoroughly enjoyed the six boxes (not all were PR samples, we have been paying members prior!) we are working out way through and shall continue to take part in our wine tastings for as long as we can.

If you’d like to sign up to The Wine List, use code SQUIBB30 and it will get you 30% off your first box!