Last-Minute Gifts for Wine Geeks

If you think that your favorite wine drinker needs a titanium-handled, battery-charged corkscrew perhaps you are overlooking some basics that every wine lover can use and some non-essentials that add a little interest.

Following are some last-minute gifts to consider.

An Ice Bucket: Get one that is large enough to fill with water and ice and allow the bottle to be fully submerged without spilling over onto the tabletop. As far as styling, you can go for the tortoise shell and fluted-edge variety or the no frills kind that my husband bought me last year. I was so happy you’d have thought it was in a 14-karat gold, jewel-encrusted setting.

A Decanter: Every wine drinker should have a decanter. It can be used as a simple aeration vessel for young, tannic reds, allowing them to open up, or for older reds that have sediment from which the wine must be separated. There are styles and sizes to suit every budget.

A Wine Aerator: A twist on the decanter, the basic idea is that these devices do the same job in just a few seconds. After combing through numerous reviews about whether or not they work, the consensus seems to be that they do.

Wine Glasses: The best advice I have read on the topic of how to choose stemware comes from Karen McNeil, author of “The Wine Bible” who says: “Only buy wine glasses that you can afford to break.” For those of you who have dined at the Guerra-Corazza house, you know why I love this particular pearl of wisdom, which brings me to my next gift idea…

Break-Resistant Stemware: The promotional blurb touts this as European crystal fused with super strong magnesium to form a durable, lightweight, shatter proof wine glass. Coming from a family where emphatic hand gesticulating is programmed into the DNA, this could be the gift that keeps on giving.

Chocolates: If you are overwhelmed or perhaps intimidated about buying a wine gift for the aficionado in your life, why not turn to chocolates? Check out the Wine Lover’s Collection at Bridge Brands Chocolate (www.bridgebrandschocolate). The collection features dark chocolates with increasingly rich cocoa intensities to match a variety of wines from Champagne (31 percent cocoa) to Zinfandel (72 percent cocoa). The 4-pound pails of chocolate drops might just be perfect filler for that ice bucket of his or her dreams!

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Tags: chocolate | wine | Champagne | wine gifts | zinfandel | wine glasses | stemware | wine aerator | decanter

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