Wine Gifts for the Wine Lover

With Christmas fast approaching, I’ve been spending a lot of my free time searching for the perfect gifts for a few difficult relatives.  Not that they are difficult--it’s just that there are always a couple relatives who either live simply or buy what they want when they want it.  It’s too bad they aren’t wine lovers; then I’d have no problem.

Wine-related gifts are a quick way to add something “classy” to stuff a stocking or add a dash of panache beneath your tree.  Consider these possibilities for the oenophile among your friends or family.

1.    Good Glasses.  Using the right glass improves the aesthetics of the winetasting experience by focusing the aromas of the wine and placing the sip in the right place in your mouth. And, let’s face it, who doesn’t find a drink more enjoyable out of crystal than a Dixie cup?  You could spend a lot of money buying every shape of glass made (there’s one for every type of wine made), but that’s not practical for most of us.  So, consider

Champagne: Not Just for New Years

My husband and I are blessed with lots of good friends. But we’re especially lucky to be friends with one particular couple. They’re easy to talk with, easy to hang out with, nonjudgmental, interesting, well-read, funny, entertaining and appreciative. They’re not picky eaters and they’re always appreciative of whatever we serve. No matter whom else we invite to a party or dinner, this couple gets along with them.

Wanting to explain how much we appreciate this couple, we once told them that they were like lettuce – they went with everything and offended no one. Oddly, they weren’t terribly flattered! So I quickly came up with a better analogy – they were like fine Champagne, I told them. They compliment everything, they offend no one, they are great for celebrations, and they brighten up ordinary events. Unlike the first comparison, they thought this one was great! 

Get More from Your Game with Syrah

The arrival of fall means the arrival of hunting season, and although I’ve never been known to hunt for anything other than bargains in the wine aisle, I really enjoy both elk and venison.  Fortunately, someone else in the family spares me the trouble of finding my own, and I always end up with a few packages to enjoy at the end of each season.

Although I occasionally struggle with finding the perfect way to cook game, I never have trouble matching it with the perfect wine.  You won’t either once you know the secret:  syrah.

I'm 'Sideways' With Merlot

In the interest of full disclosure, I must start this column by letting you know that I do not like merlot.  Although I dislike it for the same reasons that Miles in Sideways dislikes it, my disdain for the wine began long before the movie.

The basic issue for me is that traditionally, merlot has been either very good and very expensive or affordable and mediocre.  Since I don’t like to spend a lot of money for wine and I don’t like mediocre wine, there wasn’t much for me to like about merlot.

I think the problem really goes back to the merlot grape itself.

A Well-Stocked Wine Shelf

Not long ago my younger brother, who isn’t much of a wine drinker, e-mailed me to ask for help.  In honor of the momentous occasion of turning 35, he decided it was time to do some grown-up things.  One of those was to finally have something more sophisticated than Grape Nehi or Orange Crush to serve to guests who come for dinner. 

My brother often has friends over, sometimes to hang out or watch a movie and other times for dinner.  Occasionally, one of them will ask for a glass of wine.  In order to meet expectations, he decided to stock his wine rack. He was calling me to ask for suggestions, and because my brother is relatively normal and because the parameters of his request seemed practical, I thought my advice to him might be useful to some of my readers as well.

To Pair or Not To Pair: The Big Question

 My husband likes wine, but he doesn’t love it the way that I do. 

Whereas I have seldom met a wine I didn’t enjoy tasting, he is prone to labeling my wine choices—especially those from France—as “thin and sour.”

This took me several years to figure out. He isn’t a bad taster. He often identifies subtle flavors in a wine before me. But it turns out that being able to correctly identify a wine’s characteristics isn’t necessarily the same as liking the wine!

The difference between us is that we are looking for different things.

Sulfites: A Tale of the Wrongly Accused

“I can’t drink red wine because it gives me a headache.” 

I hear this all the time, usually followed by, “It’s the sulfites.  I can’t tolerate them, so I have to drink white wine.”  The people who say this may well be right that red wine gives them a headache, but I’m pretty sure that a large number of them are wrong about the cause. 

The first reason I’m sure that many of these folks are wrong is because, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, only about one in a hundred of us are truly sensitive to sulfites without any underlying medical condition.  Another very small percent of the population is potentially sensitive to sulfites because they suffer from asthma.  Sulfites can and do trigger asthma attacks, but asthma attacks don’t manifest as headaches.

But medical facts aside, there is an even bigger reason to be suspicious of the sulfites-in-red-wine-give-me-a-headache claim.  The fact is, there are actually more sulfites in white wine than in red!

Laura’s List: Best Wines of 2009; Get ‘Em While You Can!

Some people look forward to getting Time, Newsweek or U.S. News in the mail.  Others look forward to Cosmopolitan.  Still others like People, or Sports Illustrated or Money.  Me, I look forward to the arrival of Wine Spectator.

Wine Spectator isn’t necessarily the best written or the most comprehensive of the wine magazines.  With its oversize pages, heavy paper and glossy pictures of people holding aloft expensive wine glasses framed with beautiful vines and fantastic wineries in the background, it can even be a little pretentious.  But it is well written, its writers are knowledgeable and it is reader-friendly to experts and novices.  Every issue has articles about new wine releases that are good and what regions are producing the best (or best value) wines at any given time.

Although I read every issue eagerly, the issue I look forward to every year is the December 31 edition.  This issue includes a list of the year’s top 100 as selected by the magazine’s editors.