Gifting Wine

Gifting wine makes for a tasteful holiday gift (Photo by Maria Treshenkova, used by permission)

Taking a bottle of wine to a dinner party has always been among the warmest ways of saying thank you to a dinner invitation. Gifting wine is also one of the most convivial ways of sending a holiday greeting and it isn’t nearly as complicated as you might think. Here are some tips for creating memorable holiday gifts with a bottle.

First, don’t worry too much about picking the “right” wine. My experience is that while many people have favorite wines, most people don’t know the full range of wines available today. That is to say, they don’t know a lot of wines that could become favorites because they haven’t tried them yet. I have a friend who insisted she didn’t like white wine until she was coerced into having a Chablis (a crisp, unoaked chardonnay from France) and now ranks it as a new favorite. The lesson from this story is to give a gift of wine you like – in addition to being a particularly personal gift, there’s a good chance your recipient hasn’t had it yet and may end up sharing your enthusiasm.

A “collection” of wine makes a great gift idea and many good wine shops offer some already-compiled options. You might opt for these ready-made groupings or go a more individual route. You could choose a trio of reds from the same region or focus on one grape variety as it is made into wine in three different countries (say, cabernet sauvignon from France, California and Australia, or pinot noir from Oregon, New Zealand and Burgundy). You could create a “wine tour of the New World” with six bottles showcasing the classic wines of several countries, a gathering that has as its common thread neither grape variety nor region, but your passion and thoughtfulness.

Louis Reoderer is one of the most skilled and admired of Champagne “houses.”

When it comes to holidays, Champagne is always an excellent choice. I’m not one of those people who think sparkling wine is only for celebrations. Champagne is a great wine first, a wine that happens to have bubbles, and it is notable for being extremely versatile when it comes to pairing with food. Champagne, with its crisp acidity, is a wonderful match for many foods, especially dishes that are fried or have a rich cream sauce (the bubbles refresh your palate), foods that are spicy (with relatively low alcohol, sparkling wine doesn’t accentuate chile heat) or foods that are either high in acid (like ceviche) or a little salty (salt balances acidity). One of my favorite pairings (though I grant you, not particularly in the holiday spirit) is Champagne and French fries - salt, fat and acid is a match made in culinary heaven! This is the most popular time of year for retailers to put their sparkling wines on sale, so you might find some terrific bargains out there.

Finally, I’d be remiss in not suggest one gift idea that doesn’t involve alcohol, at least not directly. When I was just getting interested in wine, I bought several books to get a better understanding of what I was tasting. Most of the books I purchased are out of print now, but one remains and is better than ever. Two of the world’s greatest wine writers, Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson, released the terrific eighth edition of their “World Atlas of Wine” just two months ago and it is already one of the best-selling wine books of all time – I read recently that more than four million copies are in print.

The World Atlas of Wine - one of the greatest wine books ever, now in its 8th edition (Photo: Mitchell Beazley Publishing)

The new edition is a treasure trove of information not only about wine but about where wine is made. This is the story not only of what wine is, but also why it is – why sauvignon blanc is different in Sancerre and Marlborough, why chardonnay from Chablis is distinct from chardonnay from Sonoma, how Rioja wines have changed over the years and much more. From contour lines on a vineyard map to graphs showing you every conceivable nuance in wines around the world, this is an affordable and indispensable book for wine lovers. I can’t recommend it highly enough (and it also has a holiday design – a green cover in Europe and a red cover in the U.S.).

Well there you have some ideas about gift-able wine. We could continue the discussion all day, but I hope this gives you some ideas that may in turn spur ideas of your own. Remember, wine is a vehicle for sharing and in this season of sharing experiences, friendship and family, wine – in one form or another – can be a convivial centerpiece for your celebration.

Cheers, and happy holidays!

Blessed by Bacchus

Chablis and Oysters at The Clam (c) Lyn Farmer 2019

In my WSET wine classes, I often point out that acidity is the wine lover’s friend. A wine with crisp acidity pairs with many more foods than a lower acid wine because so many foods also contain an acid component. Acid in food makes a wine taste less acidic and in giving us the perception our wine is less acidic, we also feel it is fruitier, which in my wine book is a pretty neat trick.

In addition, crisp acidity cuts through fat in food and balances salt. In fact, salt helps reduce the sensation of acidity in wine as well as reducing bitterness in food such as tannin - the end result is that in reducing the perception of acidity, salt can often make a wine appear to be fruitier. So, acid is our friend and after a recent level two course in New York with a great group of students who asked a lot of questions about wine and food pairing, I decided to put the teaching to the test.

Our New York City classes were until recently held at City Winery in SoHo, a location that unfortunately has been sold and is forcing City Winery to relocate. The former location is just a short walk from a wonderful restaurant called The Clam. I had heard about the restaurant and was eager to try it, and I’m happy to say it exceeded my already high expectations. The Clam is a neighborhood seafood bar, a sort of upscale bistro that has a small wine list filled with interesting selections.

“Chablis and oysters are a marriage made in wine heaven and clearly blessed by Bacchus.”

If there is one classic wine I turn to frequently in class to demonstrate food and wine pairing it is Chablis, the quintessential un-oaked chardonnay from close to the fringe of Europe’s grape growing zone. Chablis is bone dry, has high acidity and, generally, no new oak at all to bring tannin into the mix. Seeing a Chablis on the list at The Clam, I asked for a taste. It was a very well made village-level Chablis from the husband and wife winemaking team of Nathalie and Gilles Fèvre. Surprisingly, they softened the acidity of this wine slightly by letting it go through malolactic fermentation, but it lost none of its sunny crispness, nor did it have unwelcome dairy notes or unnecessary weight. It was a charming wine on its own, but how would it fare with the classic pairing of oysters?

Chablis and oyster are a marriage made in wine heaven and clearly blessed by Bacchus. The flinty, steely nature of a good Chablis like this one from the Fèvres accentuated the salinity and minerality of the oysters. Most wines would interfere with such simple, pure flavors, but not Chablis, and this one was a champ. But I had more tests in mind.

A special at The Clam the night I visited was a ceviche made with razor clams, so a light dish of thinly sliced clams, radish and shallots “cooked” by mixing with mild citrus juice for a few minutes. Here the challenge to the Chablis was to stand up to the acidity of the ceviche, and it did so without flinching – as the theory tells us to expect, the acidity in the ceviche balanced that of the Chablis, making the wine appear fruitier without detracting from its lovely minerality.

Finally, I couldn’t help myself – I had to test the Chablis with salt so I ordered some of The Clam’s exceptionally good French fries – thin, crisp, a little bit of fat clinging to them and doused with a salty seasoning. That may have actually been my favorite pairing because the fries tasted fresher thanks to the cleansing acidity of the wine, and the salt help keep the wine from seeming overly acidic.

All in all, it was a triumphant experiment. I’ll tell you another time what I did with the red wine!

If you want to go, here are the restaurant’s details (you can book a table on their website or, in the US and Canada, on the Open Table app):

The Clam

420 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.theclamnyc.com