Libations
by Pat Daniel
Gift Ideas for Wine Lovers
T
he holidays are upon us. Wine and spirits feature prominently in many holiday celebrations, and they make great gifts for the season; however, shopping for these gifts can be overwhelming. Wine aficionados can be difficult to buy for; their knowledge exceeds your knowledge or their taste exceeds your budget for their gift. Here are some ideas for gifts for the wine lover in your life.
Wine Accessories
Classic gift ideas in this category include wine openers. Almost every wine lover has at least a small collection of corkscrews and other wine openers. The variations and price points are almost endless. Wine glasses are another obvious choice with a plethora of options. Obvious choices in this category are the well-known Riedel glassware; this company produces different shaped glasses for every grape varietal. These are wonderful glasses, although somewhat expensive and very fragile. Another interesting option includes a pair or set of vintage or non-traditional glasses. Stemless wine glasses have become very popular recently because they do not tip over as easily as glasses with long stems. Wine coasters (for bottles of wine, not individual wine glasses) come in a variety of materials including glass, marble, granite, sterling silver and silver plate. Many wine lovers enjoy using aerators when they do not have the time or inclination to leave the wine sitting in a decanter for an hour or two to aerate naturally. These also come in a variety of forms and price points. Wine decanters are a great gift and also come in every form from inexpensive glass to antique hand cut crystal. These can be an important, lovely part of serving wine. Wine or Champagne coolers are important for serving chilled wine. The variations run from clear plastic to marble to sterling silver. Devices for preserving wine have traditionally included pumps that removed oxygen from opened bottles of wine and gas canisters that shot gas into an opened bottle
of wine. Neither of these options worked very well or for very long. A newer device on the market, Coravin, injects argon gas, an inert gas that does not react with wine and has no effect on the taste profile, into an unopened bottle of wine, while dispensing wine out of the unopened bottle. The remaining wine in the unopened bottle will last almost indefinitely. This is a great gift but not inexpensive.
Accessories to Chill or Keep Wine Cold
Let’s start with chilling a bottle of wine. Everyone who drinks wine has had the dilemma of needing to chill a bottle of room temperature wine quickly. While an ice water bath will accomplish that in a matter of 10 to 15 minutes, there are also freezer sleeves that can be kept in the freezer and slipped onto a bottle that will work as well without all the mess. Once your bottle has been chilled there are also zip up insulated sleeves that can be used to keep a bottle of wine cold in transit or at a picnic or tailgate party. Accessories that keep wine cold after you have poured it into a glass include wine “pearls” or wine “gems.” These are small pieces of glass or marble that can be frozen and dropped into your glass without diluting the wine. Corkcicle and other manufacturers also produce insulated wine glasses and Champagne flutes.
Accessories for the Champagne Lover
Of course, a Champagne cooler is a fabulous gift for a Champagne lover. Champagne openers are small hand-held items that allow you to twist off and out the large corks used to seal Champagne bottles more easily and with less spillage than with your hand alone. Champagne stoppers allow you to reseal the bottle so that all the bubbles do not escape. However, the top gift for a Champagne lover is a Champagne saber. A Champagne saber is a sword especially designed to allow you to lob off the top of a bottle with a grand flourish! It is the ultimate way to open a bottle.
Other Great Wine Accessories
A leather travel bag for bottles of wine is an elegant gift for any wine lover. Some of these travel bags can be monogrammed. A wine rack for 10 or 12 bottles is often a welcome addition for a wine lover and can be used on a table top or on the floor. For the wine lover who is especially fond of a particular wine region, a wine map of that region is a great gift idea. A wonderful, but fairly expensive gift is a wine fridge or wine cooler. These are typically smaller refrigerators designed to keep bottles of wine at a specific temperature.
A Bottle of Wine
A bottle of wine itself is always a fabulous gift. If you know their preference, you can look for a unique bottle for them without blowing your budget. If you know a grape varietal they enjoy, a variation on that theme from a lesser known or different region can be a great idea. Examples include a Malbec from France instead of Argentina or Chile; a Riesling from the Finger Lakes region of New York instead of Germany or Alsace; a pinot noir from Burgundy instead of California or Oregon; and a Grenache blend from Spain instead of the Rhone Valley. In addition, small production, family-owned vineyards often offer great wines at a lower price than the better-known vineyards. Champagne is always a great gift. It is by its very nature celebratory! In the past few years, “Grower Champagnes” have become a wonderful new alternative to the “big name” Champagnes. Historically, smaller vineyards in the Champagne region have sold their harvest to the large producers in the region. More recently, some of these vineyard owners have decided to market their own Champagnes and are creating fabulous Champagnes that are from single vineyard, family-owned farms. Many of these fine, new Champagnes have garnered great ratings and cost half the price of their “big name” counterparts. Tag @columbusandthevalley with your gift ideas. ————————————————————— Pat Daniel is the owner of Uptown Wine & Spirits in Uptown Columbus.
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