Meridiana's wine club

Part eight gives Meridiana a reason to come back every week. The estate's wine club game is a small weekly membership: €6 a week, cancel any time, and in return a bottle arrives in your fridge every Friday, Thursday nights belong to the members, and you get a taste of what time does to a wine.

What the club gives

You join at the estate's shop, from Ama, who runs the shop and the club and remembers what you bought. The club card lists five things:

• A bottle every Friday, delivered to your fridge. The estate's five wines take it in turns, so over five weeks you meet them all: the white, the rosé and the three reds.
• Club night, Thursday at 20:00. A new flight each week, members only.
• The vertical tasting. The same wine from three years, side by side.
• First pick of the harvest blend, in September.
• 10% off the shop, and your name on the members' board.

Joining pays the first week and sends this week's bottle straight away. After that, each Friday morning the club charges the week and sends the next bottle. If you're short of money on a Friday, the club pauses itself rather than leaving you in debt; if four bottles are already waiting for you at home because you've been away, it pauses too. Join again whenever you like. Cancel, and the week you've paid for stays yours.

Club night

On Thursday evenings the tasting terrace turns into club night. Every member gets the same flight of three of the estate's wines, poured glass by glass at the tasting table while the camera settles on your glass. It's a social evening: some Fun, a lot of Social, and a stamp for your wine passport the first time.

Clara hosts unless a member who has reached the passport's Sommelier stage says they will. The host gets the night's best moment: opening a bottle with a sabre. Swipe along the neck, quick and clean, keeping to the seam, and the top flies off with a pop. Everyone in the room cheers (and gets a little Fun). Too slow, or off the seam, and you try again.

The vertical tasting

A vertical tasting is the same wine from different years. Here it's Celsius, the estate's reserve red, from 2023, 2021 and 2019. Taste them young to old and you can follow what ageing does: purple turning ruby, then brick at the rim; blackcurrant softening into cedar, then leather and dried fig; firm tannins going silky. Members can taste it once a week, and so can anyone who reaches the passport's Connoisseur stage. If you've tried blending your own wine and leaving it to age, this is the same idea in someone else's cellar.

The reserve list and the harvest blend

The shop now has a reserve list: older vintages, Celsius 2019 and Melqart 2018, that open once your passport reaches Enthusiast. Members see 10% off every bottle on the shelf, including those.

Every September there's a new harvest blend from the year's grapes, the same harvest you can help pick at the vineyard. Members get first pick through September; from October anyone can buy it until the year's end.

Three more stamps

Joining the club, your first club night and your first vertical tasting each add a stamp to your passport.

Questions people ask

Can I lose money if I forget about the club?

No. If there isn't enough money on a Friday the club pauses itself, and it never charges you into debt. Bottles that pile up while you're away pause it too.

Do I need to be a Sommelier to come to club night?

No, any member can come and pour the flight. Hosting and the sabre are for members at the Sommelier stage.

Is the sabre a real thing?

Yes. Sabrage is an old way of opening sparkling wine: a blade slid along the bottle's seam knocks the neck clean off. In the game it's a swipe, so nobody gets hurt.

New here? Start with what Malta Living is, see this month's blend competition, or read about Meridiana's own wines. Then play Malta Living free.