Celebrating 15 Years!

The Claiborne & Churchill Cellar Club was started in the Spring of 1994. Wines were released every other month, two at a time. Everything was done by hand then, from filling out the address labels on the boxes and in the big UPS book, to processing each credit card number one at a time, and getting authorization for each over the phone. Local club members even had their wine delivered to their doorstep in person by Clay and Fredericka. It would usually take them two days, one day in and around San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande, and the other day in Morro Bay/Cayucos/Cambria. We still have a great number of customers that remember those visits by the winemaker/owner himself.

As membership in the Club increased, home deliveries became too much for Clay and Fredericka, and they decided to have Cellar Cub Members come to the winery for an evening of wine and appetizers; hence the invention of the “Pick-up Party.”  

A milestone in the History of the C&C Cellar Club was the time membership hit the 1,000 mark. Clay remembers it well: he overheard two employees talking about sign-ups one day, which at that time totaled about 650 members. “Wow, what if we hit one thousand!” one of them said. As he walked by, Clay was heard to say “Geez, you guys hit one thousand, I’ll take you all to Hawaii.”  

As you might guess, sign-ups proceeded apace, and in record time the one thousand mark was reached.  And in December of 2005, Clay and Fredericka took the entire staff to Maui for a week!

Fifteen years later, many things have changed (mostly technology, e.g., online credit card processing, Wine Club Software, etc.) but one thing is for sure, our Cellar Club is still about a personal connection with the winery. (It’s also about drinking delicious, handcrafted wines and having a good time doing it!) We like to think of our club as one big happy family, which continues to grow. 

A little over one year ago we added a Wine Club Manager, Brook Thompson to our team here at Claiborne & Churchill. Brook is at the winery five days a week (Monday through Friday) to take care of any cellar club needs. 

We continue to process our Cellar Club shipments “in-house” which is pretty rare these days. It takes six workers one full day of taping boxes, filling them with bottles of wine, inserting the newsletter, and attaching the UPS label. At the end of the day UPS arrives with a big truck and away go 10 pallets of club shipments to our eagerly waiting club members.

In addition to our quarterly “Pick-up Parties” we host a number of events and dinners. Cellar Club Members benefit by receiving a special “club price” and priority reservations at any C&C event. It’s been said that we know how to have a good time around here!

Thank you to all of our loyal Cellar Club Members, we look forward to many more years of great wine and good fun!