Our criteria for Sunset Club wines are simple: Every wine has to be very well made, deliver a lot of quality for the price, and represent the region it’s from really well. Together, all of the wines we send out have to add up to a tasty exploration of West Coast Wine Country, so we look for discovery, quality and regional diversity.

Elaine Marshall searches the field and screens the possibilities (a taxing job, to be sure, but she has a palate of steel). Then we meet regularly to taste through a few cases that she considers candidates, talking our way through the merits (or lack thereof) of each bottle in the lineup and giving it a thumbs up or down. As soon as we give a wine a thumbs up for the club, we immediately start talking about its food-pairing potential, because we’re committed to making this club part of a lively food-and-wine lifestyle.

I come back to my office with notes as spare as "soy sauce" (if that’s a flavor that popped to mind as a likely complement to the wine) or as specific as “fried fish tacos with a spritz of lime.” I dig into our deep database of recipes here at Sunset and pull out a handful to put to the test with each wine. Our trusty cooks in the test kitchen produce the dishes, and a large (and ever growing) panel of Sunset editors swarm down the hall to taste each dish with the wine and rate the pairing. You get the winning recipe with the wine. We take these tastings very seriously—and have a ball. Because in the end, we hope you will know that you are truly exploring wine and food with us here at Sunset.

- Sara Schneider, Sunset wine editor