Wine subscription at Balthazar

There is no shortage of wine subscriptions in the Netherlands. The principle is simple: you pay an amount and receive a few bottles delivered to your door every month. The perfect way to discover new wines if you don’t feel like leaving the house and enjoy being surprised. We’re fans of wine delivery service Balthazar.

Balthazar’s two founders – Bas and Joost – travel all over Europe for you to give undiscovered winemakers a platform. Or a box, really. By working with small-scale and independent producers, they invest in the craft of winemaking. We can only encourage that.

How much does it cost?

For €33 per month, you receive three bottles. New ones every month, and each bottle comes with an extensive description, including food pairing. Every wine is thoroughly examined and its scores for qualities such as fruit, body, tannin and acidity are listed. That way, you immediately know what you’re dealing with. You can tell that the descriptions are genuinely written by the guys themselves – if they completely disagree with the rest of the world, they simply write that down too.

How do you recognize a good wine shop?

Our package contains two German wines, both from Rheinhessen. That’s hip, but we mainly think they’re simply very tasty. Drink the red wine lightly chilled; it’s beautifully fresh. The cabernet blanc has a very distinctive taste: it’s quite full-bodied, almost reminiscent of honey, but it remains fresh too. The third bottle is a Rioja with a bearded man on the label, very hipster, and comes with a serving tip for porchetta, including a recipe.

(Re)ordering

If you like a wine, you can easily order it again on Balthazar’s website. That’s also where you order the first box. The subscription can be cancelled monthly, and you can always pause it too.

Image: Balthazar