Ritual of Senses Wine Club

Ritual of Senses is VISUALS’ wine club. It aims to provide curated take home experiences in which wine is simply a component of something bigger. It celebrates our sense of place, Asheville, and its incredible community of creatives. Like the name suggests, it’s a ceremony for the senses. It’s about intentionally carving out moments for yourself…to appreciate, to contemplate, and to fully drink in the Visuals.

Each package will include some items from VISUALS and some items made by Asheville artists and craftspeople. The specific contents will change with each release.

From VISUALS:
Because this is a wine club, it is our goal to always include one of our low intervention, native yeast fermented grape wines in each package. Due to timing and production constraints, that may not always be possible, but no matter what, these packages will always include at least two VISUALS liquids, which could include grape wine, aromatized wine, cider, mead or spritz. These products may or may not be exclusive to the club, but we will be making efforts to provide that benefit whenever possible. Often, when a product is not exclusive to the club, members will receive it prior to it being available to the general public. In addition to the liquids, each package will come with at least one branded merchandise item.

From Asheville artists and craftspeople:
There will be several additional components included, each carefully curated and produced in collaboration with VISUALS, that combine to complete the package in a way designed to cultivate a ceremonial like experience with the liquids. These components will be made by beautiful Asheville (and surrounding area) humans that, in our humble opinion, contribute significantly to the distinct magic of this place.
Most of these components will vary across releases depend on the theme/season of the specific release. However, it is our goal to always provide some musical accompaniment to the experience. If all goes well (the logistics are challenging to say the least), this will be in the form of a vinyl record with a digital download included. Like the other components, the music will be composed and recorded by Asheville based artist and the record will be pressed locally.

Members will be added to an exclusive email newsletters so that we can communicate with the group and keep everyone updated on all happenings. Periodically, members will be offered discount codes for use on webstore purchases. We will also use the newsletter to distribute invites to special events. All member packages will be available for shipping (to the states that we can legally ship to – see here for more information) with a flat rate of $25.

Ritual of Senses Wine Club is centered around an experience with wine more than the wine itself. Many wine clubs offer a half case or full case “package”. Our packages include 2 wines and various other Asheville made products, all carefully selected to be consumed as a unit, creating a take home, ritual like experience.

Club members will get 4 packages a year. These will be released on the Spring Equinox (March 20), Midsummer Solstice (June 21), Autumn Equinox (September 22) and Midwinter Solstice (December 21).

Most of them can be found here. To summarize, you have to be 21 years of age or older, you have to be able to either pick up the package in Asheville, or have a local proxy, or live in a state that we can legally ship to. Our pre-order rule is important to understand so please see below in “how does the pre-order work?”. The membership is limited to 100 persons.

You have to be able to abide by our terms, rules and restrictions. Assuming your good with all of that, to join the club you need to register/create an account on the Burial Beer webstore and pre-order the package. We will compile the email addresses of those that order the package and create a club specific newsletter to keep everyone abreast of happenings, perks, etc. Make sure the email that you provide is accurate! By joining you are agreeing in advance to purchase future club packages. Don’t worry, we will give you plenty of notice and direction as those dates approach. Releases are quarterly on the solstice and equinox (to find the exact dates through time- see this). Your member benefits begin upon pre-ordering and continue as long as you remain in the club.

Information about when pre-orders open and close will be distributed via the standard, non-member specific VISUALS newsletter (to sign up go here). Generally, pre-orders end about 2 months prior to the release day. If you pre-order after the advertised closing or cut-off date for a specific release, you are pre-ordering for the following release by default. For instance, if you are making a pre-order in August (after the July 31 cut-off), you have missed the window to receive the Autumnal Equinox (September 22nd) package, so you are, by default, pre-ordering the Winter Solstice (December 21st) package. Any membership benefits beyond that specific package that you missed will begin immediately, and of course, you will be locked in for that subsequent package. We do it this way because our collaborators are producing their contribution to the experience to order. It takes a lot of time and effort to make these beautiful things, so they have to know how many to produce a couple months in advance. Please take note of what release you are purchasing! If the club is full (meaning we currently have 100 members) then no pre-order will be available.

We will be providing the pre-order open and close dates via the member specific newsletter. The member open and close dates will be earlier than aspiring member (general public) open and close dates as a means to determine how many openings are available for new members. We will remind you but please pay attention to the newsletter!

By the very nature of these packages, consisting of different items each release, you should expect the price to vary from season to season. We will be making a concerted effort to keep the price between $175 and $225 each. If you are non-local and need the packages to be mailed to you, these packages will default to $25 flat rate shipping (subject to change). In order for the flat rate shipping to be triggered, you must check out with only the wine club package in your cart. If you’d like to buy more items, please make a separate transaction.

If you are finding that there is no pre-order available on the webstore, chances are good that the club is full. To join the waiting list, email [email protected].

Leading up to each member package release, members will be prompted via the member specific newsletter to login and pre-order. We will not be storing your credit card information and automatically charging you. If you do not pre-order by the cut-off date, you have forfeited your membership and will lose all benefits upon that date.