The Wine Society’s evolving palate: Discover its must-try wines for this season

A Wine Society tasting is never anything less than a pleasure.

No other retailer of this scale (the mutually owned business now has 183,000 members) has a range offering comparable diversity, quality or value for money.

And very few buying teams are able to do the same skilled job with sub-£10 everyday wines as they do with top-shelf ‘fine wine’; The Wine Society’s consistently delivers at all levels.

Scroll down to see Decanter’s picks from The Wine Society’s winter range

Evolving tastes

At a tasting of 120 wines, we were spoilt for choice – narrowing it down to the selection below was no easy feat. To make things a little easier, we’ve largely confined our attention to wines that are entirely new to the portfolio.

The 25 bottles below show how The Wine Society team’s collective tastes are subtly evolving.

This evolution reflects both the need to appeal to a younger generation of members and the changing of the guard that has taken place over the past couple of years across the buying team’s ranks.

While there are still plenty of very well-chosen classics on The Wine Society’s books, the business is more open than ever to the changes in winemaking and wine aesthetics that have been brought about by the natural wine scene.

A flurry of (immaculate) additions from natural and natural-adjacent wine producers – such as Alsace’s Domaine du Rêveur and Santa Barbara County’s Camins 2 Dreams – are great examples of the success of this balancing act.

Championing the unexpected

The Wine Society has always been a pioneering champion of lesser-known, off-the-beaten-track regions. That continues apace, with wines from Armenia, Poland and Turkey all pleasing the palate – even if not, in some cases, the wallet.

But the real stars of the new additions were from more familiar countries, if not always in the shape of familiar winemakers, regions or styles. Standouts included a bunch of South Africans (with the country’s combination of excellent value and experimentation exemplified by Swartland’s AA Badenhorst and Sakkie Mouton on the west coast), some incredible old-vine Australians, and an unusual white from one of California’s finest estates.

The Wine Society: top buys this winter

 All bottle prices are correct at time of publication and do not reflect special or multi-buy offers.

Wines are grouped by style and ordered by score, in descending order.

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