I’m not saying it’s the world’s best wine club…
but I think it is
I’m trying to build the best wine club in the world, it sounds pretty cheesy but what sounds even cheesier is that I already think it is. It’s just that the rest of the world doesn’t know it yet. Or, more accurately, most of the world probably doesn’t know it exists yet.
Everything I’m working on for Not Yet Named orbits this one idea that I want the core subscription part of it to be the best. Collaborations, new regions, supporting others breaking through, experiments, icons, emails that are far too long, events, it’s all in service of trying to make the Not Yet Named subscription as good as it can possibly be. It’s definitely something I would have wanted to be part of myself before I made the jump into winemaking.
the problems
Over time, it’s become clear where I want this to go. We’ll be making somewhere between seven and nine wines every year. In an ideal world, twelve would be perfect. That number isn’t arbitrary, it’s about variety, flexibility, and giving people the freedom to drink what they enjoy. But you won’t get it all your own way, this is a democracy after all. That lack of variety has been one of the two big problems I’ve been bumping up against since the beginning.
People don’t always want to commit to six bottles of the same wine. Especially when you don’t know exactly what it will be. For example, if the vote goes white and you mostly drink red, or vice versa. Even if you know it’s going to be good, it can still feel like a bit of a gamble. More wines in the system is going to make that problem largely disappear. If something isn’t your thing, you swap it out for something else. No drama, no sense that you have to suffer for other people’s “bad” decisions. Although here is where I trot out the true mantra that there are no bad options to choose.
The second problem has always been time. Traditionally, if you signed up, you had to wait. Sometimes quite a long time, up to 18 months. That’s just the reality of making wine, but it’s also not the most compelling proposition in the world of immediacy and convenience. The wonderful thing now is that this is no longer the case.
Because I’ve been slowly building up stocks over the years, I can now offer something I never could before: wine immediately. A mixed case of back vintages when you sign up. That simply wasn’t possible in the early days, and hopefully will always be the case. It also means you can get a much better sense of what this whole thing is about without having to wait 18 months to find out.
the “cancel anytime” “promise”
You’ve heard this before but I have no intention of trapping anyone. If you want to cancel, you cancel. If you forget to cancel one month and get charged, I’ll refund you. If you tell me in advance you’re done, I’ll stop it on the requested date. Introducing it was the best thing I ever did, from my perspective I have a rough idea of how many people are in, it makes planning everything infinitely easier.
That is why subscription works out cheaper than buying cases individually, and always will. It’s not a loyalty reward; it’s a planning bonus.
what makes it the best
My confidence comes from the fact that no other wine club really works like this. You’re not just receiving wine, you’re involved in making it. Regions, varieties, blends, styles, labels, sometimes even whether a wine should exist at all. I saw a “blending lab” initiative from Naked Wines on Instagram the other day and it made me smile to myself. They sold it much better than anything I do but they’ve got a fair way to go before they even get close to what we do. They made a big deal of it on Instagram and basically one bloke went to France to blend a wine. There’s also the simple fact of us being small means it really is just me talking to you. You are as close to the winemaker as it gets. You can Whatsapp me questions. Hopefully we’ll get bigger but I have no doubt I can manage an increase in scale because due to a combination of bad jokes, slow response times an inability to answer the questions means people don’t normally bother on Whatsapp again.
Somewhere along the way, without it ever being the plan, this also became a community. It was never the intention, I just wanted to make wine and involve people in the decisions. But a combination of pick-up parties, school trips, and WhatsApp debates about votes has meant people have actually got to know each other. Friendships have formed, in-jokes have emerged, and one romance emerged as a result of a Not Yet Named party. I’m really proud of that part of it, because it wasn’t engineered. A low-intervention by-product of people caring, showing up, and sticking around. And while the wine is the point, that sense of shared experience has quietly become one of the best things about the whole project.
As for how we actually get to twelve wines a year. I’ll explain all of that properly another time. There’s a logic to it, it involves more collabs, some of them iconic… For now, just know that signing up now helps make that future possible.
