Giving a subscription to a wine club as a gift has been on the radar of corporations and other businesses for a good amount of time, but giving wine club subscriptions as gifts to personal friends and acquaintances has only recently begun to get popular. The fruit of the month clubs were replaced by wine clubs as gifts in big corporations as it became less and less taboo for people to indulge in drinking wine. While it still might be inappropriate to give a gift of subscription to a ‘hard liquor of the month club’, drinking wine is considered elegant, cosmopolitan, and certainly appropriate for business men and women in the US.

Transition to Personal Gifts

In addition to hitting the business market, wine club subscriptions are gifts that some individuals are starting to offer friends and family as a gift that lasts all year. While some subscriptions to wine clubs include a wide variety of different types of wines, it’s also possible to choose clubs that offer 12 different white wines or 12 different red wines. This is a popular option when offering a gift to somebody who enjoys white wine but not red wine, or vice versa. This range of options means that there’s a wine club gift subscription for just about anyone who’s on your list for a gift in the near future whether for the holidays or as a thank-you for something in your personal life.

Wine club subscriptions can seem either really businesslike or really personal—it all depends on the way that it is given. When somebody receives a standard notification that they have received a wine club gift subscription, it is probable that the subscription is a gift from a business colleague or an acquaintance. However, this standard notification can be added to a funny holiday card in which you recount the last time you shared a bottle of wine with that person or couple. When the subscription notification is personalized, the recipient(s) will remember that touch of personalization all year long each time that a gift is received from the wine club.

Choosing a wine club subscription as a gift for a close friend means choosing a subscription that you think they will like and make it an initially personal gift. If the recipient receives only a standard notification although you are a close personal friend, they might feel that there’s something weird about the gift, but with a personal message from you, they will feel the gift as the personally tailored one that you meant it to be.