Gifting Wine Over the Holidays

You've been invited to someone's home (yes, even in 2020, albeit with a smaller group and lots of masked people) and you know not to come empty-handed. What's better to bring than a bottle of wine?

Chances are, however, that you don't really know what your hosts might appreciate. Perhaps you know that she likes buttery Chardonnay and he likes tannic Cabernet. Been there. Had to make a decision. Or, maybe you don't know what sort of wine they drink.

Here is a process you can follow.

Pick your budget. I don't care what it is. $5 is okay, as is $10, $15, $25, or $100 (you'll get an invitation to my house for sure). Now go to a store that sells wine. Ignore everything you have ever heard of. Ignore everything with an overly colorful, overly gaudy label. Ignore everything that, particularly if you are in a supermarket environment, appears in every section (this would be something like the swill marketed as Barefoot) that produces a bad wine in every varietal. Ignore boxes and jugs as they don't package well for gifts for your hosts.

Then, having done all that ignoring, choose one of them.

There are a few hints in names that seem to have a higher percentage of winners, but this is all guesswork. If the winery has the name "Family" in it, chances are that it is or was a family business. Families usually take pride in their businesses. That's a good sign. Wines with AVA labeling in the US or AOC labeling in France or DOC or DOCG labeling in Italy have more controls on them than, for example, California table wine. And, finally, if you are lucky enough to see reviewer's ratings and the ratings are from any of Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, James Suckling, or Antonio Galloni and they are close to or more than 90 points, that's a great hint. On the other hand, if they are ratings from some strange place you have never heard of, don't trust them.

Got it? Good.

At this point, I feel the need to address one other form of holiday wine gifting. And, I know that I may upset some who do not seem to have advanced degrees in logic, but I am going to do this anyway. I see these things on Facebook all the time. Holiday gift exchanges, except that's a misnomer.

Someone starts it. Their name goes at the top of the list. Six people join and each add their name to the list gifting a bottle to each of the 6 names above them. And, the list gets passed around. somehow, each person on the list buys 6 bottles and receives 36 bottles. And, according to the posts on Facebook, everybody gets 36 bottles for their expenditure of 6 bottles.

Wow, that is magic. I want in. I love the idea of buying 6 mediocre bottles of wine and getting 36 good ones in return.

Can someone explaine to me how this works that everyone is a winner. Let's suppose there are 100 people in the "tree" and each buys 6 bottles and each receives 36 bottles. So, 600 bottles are purchased and 3600 bottles appear.

Really? Where do the other 3000 bottles come from? My cellar? Did somebody raid my cellar? Listen, I don't have that much in my cellar. You must have raided a far better one than mine.

In all seriousness, wine bottles do not magically appear. Ever. They don't. They can't. Beer bottles might. If you drink enough whiskey, you might think that other bottles have magically appeared.

But, wine bottles do not procreate. They do not clone themselves. You cannot have a group of people buy 600 bottles and somehow have those bottles turn into 3600.

Got it? Good.