When afternoon temperatures get in excess of 80°F, your wines can be damaged as a delivery truck’s internal temperature can heat up quickly. Please protect your wines by expediting to airship. For subscribers, we automatically upgrade your shipment to next day, two-day and/or add ice, depending on the destination. 

If you live in excessive heat of 90° or more, and where the driver will not drop for an hour or longer on the driver’s route, you can further protect your wine during “the last mile” by requesting that your wine be dropped off at the nearest UPS Access Store for you to pick up within 5 days. This way, you can optimize the temperature conditions to ensure your wines are well-protected.

If you do not upgrade, we reserve the right not to ship until conditions improve. We are committed to your experience of tasting the wines at their optimum quality.

Great news is that your monthly subscription wines will receive a complimentary airship upgrade when we see that the weather is heating up at the delivery location andor through the shipping routes. We pride ourselves in getting your wines to you without heat damage.

For non-subscription kits including WSET, CMS and Custom Kits, please choose expedited shipping at checkout.

If you do not upgrade shipping when necessary, we reserve the right not to ship until conditions improve. 

You love wine. It is your passion. You just wish you could go further and learn about new regions, new grape varieties. Or maybe it gets deeper than that: you need to pass a wine certification exam to get ahead in your career, or you want to impress your wine-loving boss. Master the World empowers Wine Professionals & Enthusiasts to improve their palates and grow wine knowledge. Our tasting kit will help you organize your tasting experience to allow you to evaluate wine, understand what you’re drinking and articulate what you like and what you know.

Each MTW blind tasting wine kit is delivered to your door. When ready, sign into your MTW account, taste the wines in your kit, and record your observations in the MTW online evaluation tool. After that, look forward to receiving instant feedback on the identity of each wine, and compare notes against those of a panel of wine experts. We call it “Pour. Taste. Reveal.” Each month you are also invited to join our MTW community webinar, including a live discussion with fellow tasters and a panel of wine experts.

Yes!! If you’re a passionate enthusiast, these kits help you explore a range of “classic wines and grapes” and take out the guesswork about benchmark examples for reference – that’s what we do in our selection process. And more importantly, it will be FUN. This is also a great way to enjoy world class  wines and discover new favorites from palates you can trust. 

Yes!! If you are a wine professional, think of this as wine “navy seal” training: Our goal is to help you improve your tasting skills by providing curated wine kits that you can test yourself against, and receive immediate feedback on how you fared against the findings of a panel of wine experts.

Each kit is a curated selection of six bottles of wine, with a tasting mat and instructions on how to use our site/app to evaluate these wines. Each bottle is 180 ml. Wines that are benchmarks of the regions and varietals they represent are selected by our panel of wine experts. We re-bottle into these 180 ml bottles through an anaerobic (oxygen-free) process to maintain the quality of the wine. These are premium and super premium branded wines, not bulk wines and once you submit your deductions, we reveal the full identities of the labels so it will be an open, honest process. The bottles are sealed with screw caps for freshness and convenience – no corkscrews needed.

Even though the identities of the wines are masked by sleeves, the identity of each wine is on the bottle’s inner label – so at any point, if you want to stop guessing, click for an online reveal or just rip the sleeve off. We NEVER use bulk wine but are actually re-bottling branded 750 mls into 180 mls from an anaerobic wine transfer process. These are world class wines selected by a panel of wine experts.

Our rotating panel of Master Sommerliers, Masters of Wine, and Wine Experts meets and tastes regularly to determine the best examples of wines by grape, country, and region. We evaluate many more samples than imaginable to curate and purchase “benchmark” selections to share with you. Rest assured that your experience is our #1 priority and we scrutinize and choose the wines based on their being signature examples of what they are.

This is not a timed exercise, unless you want it to be. We do not expect you to knock out each wine in four to five minutes. Take as much time as you would like or use a timer if you want. Your first two wines will start out a little slower, but as you become accustomed to the scoring grid, your evaluation will speed up. Most people tell us somewhere around 15 minutes per wine is where they start. And know that you can always change your mind until you hit “submit.”

Once a benchmark wine has been selected, we “map” and create an answer key for the wine. Your deductions are scored against our observations. Note that while several elements are absolute (the dryness or sweetness of a wine, its color, or the elements of structure such tannins, acid, and alcohol), others are more subjective. The three descriptors you may choose for aromas/flavor may come from a slightly larger matrix of terms we have approved. After all, one person’s peach may be another’s nectarine!

The lists of fruit, floral, oak, spice and other such descriptors were assembled, by category, as an accepted matrix of the most frequently referenced/used terms for each. While inevitably not 100% exhaustive, they are comprehensive. If you believe that there are any terms missing from our lists, please let us know. We’ll evaluate and possibly add it to ours. 

We will be adding education content frequently to our Webinar & Education section where you can find our monthly webinars, blog posts, and videos. 

You can reach us at somm@MTWwines.com . We strive to respond within 48 business hours. 

If you have just placed an order, please note that it can take up to 7 days to process the order before shipping. But we do try to get in stock kits out within 48 business hours if the weather is good!

Depending on your choice of shipping, your order could take up to 7 days to arrive on the east coast from our winery in San Carlos, California. We are not open to will-call or self pick-up orders at this time. 

We are a small business with limited resources – while we answer emails within 48 business hours, we may not always be by the phone. If you need to leave us an urgent message, you can call 415.683.0696. 

We usually ship via UPS to most US states except for the following: AL, DE, MS, RI, SD and UT. We can also ship to AK, HI and some international destinations for an additional charge – Please email us at somm@MTWwines.com for international locations for a case-by-case evaluation. This ship-to list is updated as we grow as a business or as state laws change. Please check back for updates. We are not able to ship to a P.O. Box in any state or country. 

Your order may be placed on a weather hold if the weather conditions at our winery or your destination are not conducive for wine shipping. During the summer, we negotiate for lower air shipping rates so that you can upgrade your shipping or we can provide a way for you to hold your packages at our warehouse until you are ready to receive the shipment. 

We can only sell wine to persons who are at least 21 years old. At time of ordering, the person ordering will need to provide an accurate birthdate. Additionally, an adult of at least 21 years old will need to sign for the package and must be ready to show proof of age. Business addresses are preferred to ensure delivery on the first attempt. If you would prefer that we ship to a UPS select location, please email us at somm@MTWwines.com and we can arrange that to ensure delivery success.

Please note that there will be a re-shipment fee of $25-$40 if a package is returned to us in the event that it could not be delivered due to failed delivery attempts. 

If you are a monthly subscriber, please cancel before your monthly renewal date. You can cancel at anytime. Once your monthly subscription renews, and your order has shipped, we will not be able to refund your order for that month. If you run into any issues, please do reach out to us via email at somm@MTWwines.com.

If you are an annual subscriber and pre-paid for the 12 shipments, you will receive all 12 monthly shipments at the best rate. In canceling your subscription, you will not be charged again when the annual subscription ends. 

If you are trying to cancel an order you just placed, it is possible that we have not processed your order yet. Please email us right away within 12-24 hours and we can try to stop the processing of your order. Please email us at somm@MTWwines.com for faster service.