Wine clubs promise the same thing. Pay a monthly fee and get mystery bottles, so that you can skip the part where you stand in a shop squinting at labels and pretending you know what “structured” means. Or, if you’re like me, you buy wine based on what the label looks like alone.

And some clubs deliver on that. Some of them, though, are just a subscription box with a wine cork glued to the lid.

So we asked sommeliers and wine-industry pros which clubs they’d actually recommend. Here are 12 of them, plus what the pros say separates a real club from a curated cash-grab scam.

HOW TO ACTUALLY VET WINE CLUBS

While the pros all had their own specific picks below, there were a few things the pros all agreed on, regardless of which club they recommended.

• Price-check the per-bottle cost against what you’d spend on something similar at a restaurant, since you’re paying for the wine plus the research and delivery. 
• Email a company a few questions before signing up. Thoughtful answers mean they care, generic ones mean keep looking. 
• Flexibility is also a good sign. A club that locks you into shipments you don’t want is less of a perk, and more of a warning. 
• If nobody involved can tell you who actually made the wine in your box, that’s the clearest red flag there is. You could have just as much luck blindly buying a mass-produced bottle of wine from your local corner liquor store.

With those vetting strategies, you can be well-positioned to head off in search of the perfect wine club for you. Here are a few clubs to help kick off your search.

PLONK WINE CLUB

We’ll kick off this list with a VICE pick. Plonk Wine Club is an organic and biodynamic club curated by WSET and American Sommelier Association-certified founder Etty Klein, who specializes in hunting down indigenous grape varieties from under-the-radar regions like Croatia, Slovenia, Greece and Hungary. Choose red, white or mixed, in 4, 6 or 12-bottle shipments, with free shipping and detailed tasting notes plus recipe pairings included.