Tag Archives: wine gifts

Holiday wine gift guide 2022

wine racks at a storeThe Wine Curmudgeon’s holiday wine gift guide 2022 — value, value, and more value

Once again this year, the WC received the same sort of news releases for holiday season wine gifts — lots of overpriced items that hardly anyone actually needs. That means you, Yeti wine cooler.  Plus, and as always, lots and lots of plus for the Coravin opener, which begs the question: How many Coravins does one person have to have?

Which doesn’t those of us much good who want quality and value, as well as a gift we will enjoy. Which brings us to the blog’s 2022 holiday wine gift guide. As always, keep the blog’s wine gift buying guidelines in mind:

• Give the gift of the blog, and save the WC from all that Substack subscription advice.  One year of the newsletter at 20 percent off, just $56. Click this link to send a gift subscription. Use the email address of the person getting the subscription where it asks for an email, add a credit card, and they’ll get the $10 Hall of Fame, the Cheap Wine of the Year, and all of the rest — plus the rants and analysis that have made the blog what it is.

• Windows on the World, 35th edition ($21): There are probably a trillion wine books, including mine (which is almost out of print). But the Zraly is almost certainly the best overall look at wine and how to make sense of it. I own a couple of editions, and it has been the textbook for most of the college wine classes I have taught. And if it seems like I recommend it regularly, that’s because it’s that good.

• The Language of Yes Syrah 2020 ($40, sample, 13.9%) is a collaboration between Randall Grahm, who is about as iconoclast as wine gets, and E&J Gallo, which isn’t. Ever. In any way. Hence, it’s an interesting and well-made wine that doesn’t taste particularly a Randall Grahm wine, and especially a syrah. Remember this? Instead, it’s less meaty, but fruitier (black fruits) and more rich. And, because it is what it is, it has received high praise from the Winestream Media. That’s something that doesn’t always happen with Grahm wines.

• Yes, wine glasses seem sort of cliched — until yours break and you need new ones And then they’re expensive and confusing.  But a company called made-in has quality glasses — four red and four white for $69.

Photo:”More Wine Racks” by Didriks is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

More holiday wine gift guides:
• Holiday wine gift guide 2021
• Holiday wine gift guide 2020
• Holiday wine gift guide 2019

Holiday wine gift guide 2021

holiday gifts
“That metal foil cutter looks super cool.”

The Wine Curmudgeon’s holiday wine gift guide 2021 — which, of course, includes things that aren’t wine

Do a Google search for wine gifts, and they tend to repeat each other — as if one gift guide borrowed from another gift guide which borrowed from another gift guide. Consider this waterproof Bluetooth glass holder so you can listen to tunes and drink wine while in the shower. It showed up in so many gift roundups that it’s sold out.

Which, of course, we don’t do here. Hence, the blog’s 2021 holiday wine gift guide, which includes things that aren’t wine. And, as always, keep the blog’s wine gift buying guidelines in mind:

• Steven Spurrier: A Life in Wine ($45): Spurrier, who died this year, could have been the most important wine writer in those ancient, pre-Parker days. If he had not held the Judgment of Paris, who knows how long it would have taken California wine to take its place in the world? But Spurrier was much more than a wine writer; he was also an important wine educator and leading wine merchant who owned a wine shop in Paris  — hardly something most Britons would do.

• Smith-Madrone’s riesling ($35, sample, 12.9%) is a wine that reminds me just how amazing wine can be. For one thing, California doesn’t do much riesling, and it certainly doesn’t do much well. But this one is a revelation, combining California-style fruitiness with the varietal characteristics that make great riesling so much fun to drink. That means lime zest, a bit of tingliness in the back, a hint of petrol, some sweetness floating around to remind you it’s riesling, just enough acidity to greet the sweetness, and stoniness in the finish.

• Regular visitors know that the Wine Curmudgeon is not much for wine gadgets; he’d rather buy wine. Still, there’s something about this metal foil cutter ($25) that strikes me as worthwhile. Too many bottles still have foil caps and too many of those refuse to come off with a twist. And, frankly, using a waiter’s corkscrew to remove the foil leads to cursing and cut fingers. So why not a foil cutter?

• Laherte Freres Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature ($50, purchased, 12.5%) is an amazing bubbly, everything that Champagne – the sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France – should be, and especially for those of us who prefer a cleaner, more minerally style.  One estimate gives it another 20 years in the bottle, and I wouldn’t argue with that at all.

And, finally — shameless plug alert! — give the blog as a gift: One year of the newsletter at 20 percent off, just $56. Click this link to send a gift subscription. Use the email address of the person you’re giving the subscription to where it asks for an email, add a credit card, and they’ll get the $10 Hall of Fame, the Cheap Wine of the Year, and all of the rest — plus the rants and analysis that have made the blog what it is.

More holiday wine gift guides:
• Holiday wine gift guide 2020
• Holiday wine gift guide 2019
• Holiday wine gift guide 2018

Holiday wine gift guide 2020

holiday wine 2020The Wine Curmudgeon holiday wine gift guide 2020, and even a couple of things that aren’t wine

The big trend in wine gifts this year? Non-alcoholic products, if the mail in my inbox is any indication. Or — shudder — a $426 decanter. We can do much better than that; after all, why else does the blog exist? Keep in our wine gift buying guidelines in mind, as well.

Consider:

• Joe Roberts’ “Wine Taster’s Guide” ($14.99, Rockridge Press) is neither pretentious nor expensive — which is why it’s on this list. Joe, who I’ve known almost since I started the blog, is passionate about the failings of post-modern wine writing, and especially that we buy wine we may not like because the process is so intimidating.

• The Benziger de Coelo Quintus Vineyard Pinot Noir 2016 ($68, sample, 14.1%) is a gorgeous, structured — albeit not especially subtle — Sonoma Coast pinot noir. It’s full of dark fruit, maybe even some tea, and the soft tannins that used to be common in California pinot. Not quite sure how I got a sample, but very glad I did. Highly recommended.

• The Wine Curmudgeon has a drawer full of wine-stained tablecloths, mostly from dripping wine bottles. Hence, the marble wine coaster ($19.95), which not only would have saved many of my tablecloths but looks good, too.

• Ice wine is one of the great joys of the wine world, but is increasingly difficult to find and increasingly expensive. And it wasn’t easily available or cheap to begin with. So when a winemaker reader tipped me to the Kiona Vineyards Chenin Blanc Ice Wine 2018 ($50/375 ml bottle, sample, 9%), I asked for a sample — something I rarely do. And I was not disappointed. This is ice wine in all its glory — lusciously sweet, but balanced, with pineapple and tropical fruit and refreshing crispness. Highly recommended.

More holiday wine gift guides:
• Holiday wine gift guide 2019
• Holiday wine gift guide 2018
• Holiday wine gift guide 2017

Tuesday Birthday Week 2020 giveaway: Wine Not women’s slippers

slippersWin a pair of Wine Not women’s slippers — because, Wine Not?

And the winner is: Doug, who selected 442; the winning number was 437 (screen shot below).  Thanks to everyone who participated. Tomorrow’s giveaway is a $100 Wine.com gift card from one of the blog’s long-time supporters. That will be the third of five daily giveaways; check out this post to see the prizes for the rest of the week.

Today, to celebrate the blog’s 13th anniversary, we’re giving away a pair of Wine Not women’s slippers — because, wine not? (Sorry.) This is the second of five daily giveaways; check out this post to see the other prizes.

Complete contest rules are here. Pick a number between 1 and 1,000 and leave it in the comment section of this post. You can’t pick a number someone else has picked, and you need to leave your guess in the comments section of this post — no email entries or entries on other posts. Unless the number is in the comments section of this post, the entry won’t count.

If you get the blog via email or RSS, you need to go to this exact post on the website to enter (click the link to get there). At about 5 p.m. central today, I’ll go to random.org and generate the winning number. The person whose entry is closest to that number gets the slippers.

Birthday Week 2020 starts Monday

birthday weekThe blog’s 13th annual Birthday Week starts Monday, with our usual assortment of terrific prizes

Birthday Week 2020, the 13th annual, begins on Monday with five days of prizes for the blog’s readers. The daily giveaways are the Wine Curmudgeon’s annual thank you to everyone who reads the blog and visits the site, since none of this would happen without you. And who wouldn’t enjoy a  prize or two in the middle of a pandemic and recession?

Contest rules are here. Those of you who get the blog via email or RSS will need to go to winecurmudgeon.com and click on that day’s prize post to enter.

Each day next week, a prize post will run in addition to the regular post. Pick a number between 1 and 1,000 and leave it in the comment section of the prize post. You can’t pick a number someone else has picked, and you need to leave your guess in the comments section of the post — no email entries or entries on other posts, like this one. Unless the number is in the comments section of the prize post, the entry won’t count.

This year’s prize schedule:

• Monday: An autographed copy of Jessica Dupuy’s “The Wines of Southwwest USA.”

• Tuesday: Wine Not women’s slippers, which keeps your feet warm and is funny.

• Wednesday: A $100 gift card from Wine.com. Thanks to Wine.com, a long-time supporter of the blog and what we do here.

• Thursday: Four Schott Zweisel wine glasses, just like the ones the Wine Curmudgeon uses.

• Friday: Three autographed copies of the cheap wine book, just in time for the holidays.

Besides the prize giveaways, I’ll recap the past year on the blog — the top posts and the least liked on Monday, as well as my always insightful analysis about what it all means and the future of the wine business on Thursday. The blog’s Thanksgiving wine suggestions will post on Friday..

Picture courtesy of Comedy Card Company, using a Creative Commons license

The blog’s year end, holiday, and 2021 $10 Hall of Fame schedule

schedule
“Damn. I’d better clean this mess off so I can keep up with the WC’s holiday schedule.”

Get ready: The next couple of months of blog excitement include the 13th annual Birthday Week and giveaways, lots of holiday wine and gift suggestions, and the 2021 $10 Hall of Fame and Cheap Wine of the Year

• Birthday Week, celebrating 13 years of cheap wine enthusiasm, begins Nov. 16. Included among the giveaways is a $100 gift card from Wine.com, as well as wine glasses, wine books, and who knows what else?

• Our Thanksgiving wine suggestions will appear Nov. 20, with Christmas and New Year’s wine ideas on Dec. 21 and Dec. 28.

• The always popular Do it Yourself wine resolutions is set for Jan. 4.

• The 2021 $10 Hall of Fame will make its 14th appearance on Jan. 8, and the 2020 Cheap Wine of the Year will post on Jan. 7. As always, you can email me with suggestions for either or leave them in the comments. So far, prices and quality haven’t been quite as bad as I feared, which is impressive given the 25 percent wine tariff, the last death struggles of premiumization, and the pandemic. As always, your suggestions are much appreciated. You can check out the eligibility rules here. Keep in mind the wine should cost less than $12 or $13, should be generally available, and can’t be a private label sold exclusively by one retailer.

Photo: “2012-08-15 08.25.57” by KRoark is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

A blog holiday update, plus the 2020 $10 Hall of Fame schedule

The Christmas and New Year’s wine of the weeks will post on the Monday before the holiday

• The Christmas and New Year’s wines of the week will post on the Monday before each holiday, since the blog will be off on both Wednesdays. Plus, our New Year’s wine suggestions will appear on Dec. 26.

• The always popular Do it Yourself wine resolutions is set for Jan. 2.

• The 2020 $10 Hall of Fame will make its 13th appearance on Jan. 10, with the 2020 Cheap Wine of the Year on Jan. 9. You can check out eligibility rules here; remember, no private label wine or wine only available at one retailer. As always, you can email me with suggestions.