(Playboy) - There are a dozen ways to judge a wine club, from its pricing and personalization to its ability to get hard-to-find bottles into your hands. (For a guy who lives in Pennsylvania—a place where every state-run wine shop tends to stock the same stuff—this last feature is a major plus.)

But in terms of the “quality” of a club’s wines? That’s tough to assess. Decades of wine research has repeatedly hammered home the fact that wine drinkers—even the super-knowledgeable—struggle to differentiate expensive wines from cheap ones.

A 2008 study from Humboldt State University found only 10 percent of judges involved in U.S. wine competitions were “consistent” when rating wines. (When secretly served the same wines three times during a competition, most judges tended to score the exact same wine differently each time.)

More research has also shown, over and over again, that a wine’s price and label play a big part in determining how much the drinker enjoys it—even when the price tags and labels from pricey bottles are slapped onto cheap plonk.

But setting aside the subjective nature of wine tasting, many delivery clubs are worth checking out.

VARIETY CLUBS VS. WINERY CLUBS
There are two categories of wine club out there, says David Jeffrey, founder and chief winemaker at Sonoma Valley’s Calluna Vineyards.

The first are clubs from specific wineries. These offer you only their wines, usually at a discounted price, Jeffrey explains.

If you know you like a vineyard’s vino, joining its club gives you access to discounted pricing and some other benefits—like free vineyard tours or early access to new or special vintages, he says.

There are also the big clubs that send you a selection of bottles every month, or every few months. “These are generally aimed at customers who don’t know exactly what they want to buy, or may be less knowledgeable about wine, but they like wine and are interested in learning,” Jeffrey says.

The best of these clubs use their purchasing power to secure good, interesting wines at steep discounts, which they then pass on to their subscribers. “But there can be wine club managers who are not as good or diligent about getting excellent wines, but rather are more focused on getting the cheapest product and making the most money,” he adds.