You Can Find Us in the (Wine) Club

Did you ever belong to a club as a kid?  4H, the “No Boys Allowed” club, “He Man Woman Haters?”… Regardless, did you know that there are clubs for adults who like to drink wine? Wine clubs have become a popular way for wine drinkers to take their favorite vino home or take their chances on whatever the wineries choose for you!

Since we like to support local businesses, we belong to a couple of the clubs at local wineries in East Tennessee. In these cases, you sign up and pay a fee to become part of the club. Then you pick the wines you want in your “box,” which are ready for pick up at regular intervals. You also get discounts for tastings and bottles all year long.

And like a good wine, we like a good party. That’s where the club at the Winery at Seven Springs Farm excels!  Once a quarter they have a “Pickup Party” at their winery near Maynardville with live music, food, and of course all the wine you care to pay for.  They also have a supply of local Sweetwater Valley Farm cheese and meats from local vendors for sale or to take home … And you get to retrieve your box of wine. Seven Springs wines feature a great variety, from the dark but fruity Rooster Red to the Rosé Bubbly affectionately called Pink Bubbly, along with the muscadine varieties we’ve come to expect from this region. Their fruit varieties are also quite good! The location is certainly #offthetipsypath but totally worth it.

The widest variety we have found is by joining a club that has access to not one, but six different wineries.  Rocky Top Wineries actually has their own “wine trail” between their properties – Hillside Winery, Apple Barn, Apple Barn Cider House, Mountain Valley Winery, Sugarland Cellars, and Mill Bridge Winery. We’re proud to say we made it to each one during a July 4^th weekend visit to Gatlinburg. They’re all located a short drive from each other in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville. And of course, they talked/tasted us into joining the club. They have pickups ready every six months, four of your choice and two of the “Winemakers Select” bottles. We actually don’t mind fighting the tourist traffic twice a year for a visit.

After several years of success, they seem to have hit a slight hiccup in a new state law that apparently limits the number of wineries you can choose from to just one at a time. No worries, we plan to continue to share the love, but it’s forcing us to think harder about the half dozen bottles we want from one particular winery each time.  We will adapt and overcome like all good drinkers do.

There’s no shortage of wineries in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area. Most of them have their own version of a wine club. We have enjoyed wine tastings at most of them, including Gatlinburg Wine Cellar, Little Bear Winery, Bootleggers Homemade Wine, Cades Cove Cellars, and Tennessee Homemade Wines.

Of course, if you prefer to have wines delivered directly to your home … there are lots of options online to have wines shipped to your home from wineries around the country. We’ll leave it up to you to research the various regulations around that – but one of our faves is Quigley Fine Wines.

Bottom line, wine clubs are a great way to ensure a steady supply of the good stuff – either to get more of what you like or try your luck with new varieties!