ProductReportCard Editors' In-Depth Review
Pros And Cons
Pros
- 100% satisfaction guarantee
- Interesting bottles of red wine at a good value
- In addition to the typical wine newsletter, shipments also include a nice note from the founder of Élevant with his thoughts on the featured wines and food pairings
- Shipments include comment card to encourage member feedback on wines
- Helpful, friendly customer service representatives that can be reached by phone or by live chat on Vinesse's website
Cons
- Previously featured wines are not publicly archived on Vinesse's website
- No reordering discounts offered
- Describing a $29 - $35 bottle of red wine as "super-premium" or "ultra-premium" is a reach
- $2.50 surcharge to ship to a residence
- Élevant has received generally positive feedback, but one of Vinesse's lower-end wine club memberships has gotten a lot of complaints from customers which has hurt the brand's overall online reputation
- Doesn't offer gift notification by email or traditional mail
- Currently cannot ship to Utah and South Dakota
Key Features
Products
Vinesse sends Élevant Society members a variety of ready-to-drink bottles of red wine. Vinesse chooses robust red wines from boutique wineries around the world, but they have a particular affinity towards big, bold American reds.
Membership Options
There are no signup fees, no annual dues, and no minimum obligation to be a Élevant Society member. You will choose between 2-, 4-, 6-, 8- or 12-bottle shipments and whether you want to receive 5, 7 or 14 shipments per year. Essentially, 5 shipments is a quarterly delivery schedule that includes 1 holiday shipment, 7 shipments is a bimonthly delivery schedule that includes 1 holiday shipment, and 14 shipments is a monthly delivery schedule that includes 2 holiday shipments. Unless you buy a gift membership that is limited to 3, 6 or 12 shipments, you will continue to receive and be charged for wine shipments until you call and cancel your membership with Vinesse directly.
Recently Featured
Some of the recently featured wines include: a 2008 Mathis Sonoma Valley Grenache, a 2007 Bodegas Balbas Ribera del Duero Crianza and a 2010 Crawford Family Wines Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir.
Newsletter
Each shipment comes with a thoughtful note from the Élevant Society founder and 2 handouts with information on each of the featured wines. In addition to providing background on the varietal, winery, winemaker and growing region, the handouts will also include tasting notes, food pairing suggestions and reordering information if you want to receive more bottles.
Extras
Currently, Vinesse doesn't offer any bonus gifts with the Élevant Society membership.
Gift Information
If you are giving Élevant Society membership as a gift, you can choose between sending 3, 6 or 12 shipments of either 2, 4, 6, 8 or 12 bottles. Vinesse doesn't offer gift notification by email or traditional mail, but you can submit a gift message for the recipient that will be placed in their 1st wine shipment.
Shipping Schedule
According to Vinesse's customer service, shipments are typically sent out around the 15th of the month. When you place your order, it will take Vinesse 48 hours to process your 1st shipment, and then the shipment will be in transit for another 1 - 8 business days depending on how far away you live from California.
Satisfaction Guarantee
All of the wine you receive as an Élevant Society member is backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you receive a corked bottle or simply don't like the featured wine, you can call Vinesse within 30 days and they will either replace the bottle or refund your money. In each shipment, they encourage members to submit honest feedback on the featured wines, and they use this feedback to constantly improve their selections. With that said, if you ever want to cancel your membership, you can do so at any time without incurring a cancellation fee. As with other wine clubs however, you just have to cancel before your next shipment is processed or you will still get charged one more time.
Reputation
Vinesse has gotten a bad rap from customers online, but it is important to note that its Élevant Wine Club has actually received pretty good feedback, and that the vast majority of the complaints against Vinesse are directed towards its American Cellars Wine Club, which is one of its lower end memberships ($12 - $15 per bottle). To make a long story short, certain airlines partnered with Vinesse's American Cellars club in order to supplement their revenues, and they offered bonus miles to any of their frequent fliers who purchased a membership to American Cellars. Customer complaints were generally about not receiving bonus miles, about the quality of the wines, about the overall value of the offer and/or about ongoing shipments/ credit cards charges. While the airlines and American Cellars share the blame on all of these issues, we didn't feel that Vinesse demonstrated any ill intent in the situation, and, according to the BBB, it sounds like they have been able to resolve the complaints. Regarding the ongoing credit card charges however, it is really the responsibility of the customer to understand the Terms & Conditions of ANY ongoing membership/subscription service that they sign up for. Whether it is with a wine club, gym or newspaper, our advice is to just assume that you are going to continue to be charged until you actually call and cancel your membership.
With all of that said, we are not recommending the American Cellars Wine Club to our readers, but we would recommend trying the Élevant Society if you want to sample "big, bold" reds in the $29 - $35 price range. In the interest of full disclosure, when we told Vinesse that we wanted to review the Élevant Society, they sent us 2 free bottles of wine to try out. While we appreciate free stuff, we made sure to reiterate that we couldn't guarantee them favorable review. Fortunately, we didn't have to worry about it because we were very impressed with the bottles that we received: a 2008 Mathis Sonoma Valley Grenache and a 2007 Bodegas Balbas Ribera del Duero Crianza. My husband and I tend to purchase classic varietals from classic growing regions, but we have recently been trying to expand our knowledge of Spanish wines, and I personally had never even tried Grenache. Obviously, Vinesse could never have known these things about me, but, as promised, they delivered very interesting, robust reds that I would never have found at my local wine store. While I wouldn't call the bottles "super-premium", they were really good and definitely fun for a tasting party or to pull out for a dinner party.
Facebook
