This is a wine club dinner. Wine clubs are becoming increasingly popular not only as a means to try new wines, but as a vinous entertainment option. Randy and Gail belong to Reif Estate Winery wine club ( www.reifwinery.com), Chris and Delia belong to Hillebrand (www.hillebrand.com) and Shawn and Deb chose Harbour Estate Winery. Dinner was about the 'wines of the month' and it was their chance to have fun with them.

Most wine clubs include a newsletter, will ship two bottles of wine to your home a month, offer priority reservations for winery events and discounts on in-store or online boutiques. That's pretty much standard fare but beyond these features, wine clubs are widely different and it's best to shop around to find one that offers great wines and your kind of entertainment.

Reif Estate Winery's club offers a monthly newsletter with fun ideas for wine entertaining along with a few tidbits of personal information on the winemaker and owners. In fact, they offer a personalized tour and tasting with owner Klaus Reif and winemaker Roberto DiDomenico. Randy and Gail invited the others on their personalized tour and the experience made for exciting dinner conversation.

Beyond the tour, Reif offers complimentary in-store tastings and limited special premium tastings for you and a few guests - almost like having your own winery to show off to your friends.

Harbour Estates Winery (www.hewwine.com) have private members events such as the Members Only Barrel Tasting while Vineland Estates Winery (www.vineland.com) crafts small lots of premium wines that are sold only to wine club members.

Inniskillin's wine club (www.Inniskillin.com) offers members a chance to purchase library wines -- aged wines of superior quality and small quantities not available for sale in the retail shop.

In addition to winetasting notes, Hillebrand offers recipes from Executive Chef Frank Dodd. Perfect for evenings like this to try different wine and food experiences.

Wine clubs are the most inexpensive club to join -- they're free! They offer great value if you're a wine lover and make wonderful gifts for the wine lover in your family.

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Lynn Ogryzlo is food and wine writer for Niagara this Week and Niagara Life Magazine.