Le Petit Ballon is a subscription wine club that is a little bit different. Your subscription will see just two wines delivered each month, usually one white and one red, the wine wines selected by Jean-Michel Deluc, the former sommelier at The Paris Ritz. Each wine comes with tasting notes and has an online video, and subscribers receive a magazine with food and wine pairings, recipes, and the winemakers’ stories. Further quantities of any wines you particularly like can be ordered and Le Petit Ballon promises there will be “at least 20% off.”
The company is headquartered in Paris, where it has a tasting room and wine shop on the Rue de Rocher, and claims to have 60,000 subscribers. But for UK wine lovers there are two levels of subscription for direct wine delivery – ‘Grape Expectations’ at £24.90 per month, and ‘Age of Raisin’ at £39.90 per month. One interesting idea is that you can ‘skip’ months at any time via their website, and you can also cancel completely at any time with no penalties. See lepetitballon.co.uk.
The Wines
Le Petit Ballon sent me a trial of a two bottle selection from one of their monthly ‘Grape Expectations’ offer, which came with useful and collectible A5 information cards on each wine.