Present buying paranoia is with us. At least half of the population is wondering what on earth to buy for the other half. I refer of course to the sexual divide.
Women are easy to buy for. Honestly all we ask is an item of clothing and the receipt (you don’t think we’re going to keep it, do you?). It’s men who are so difficult to please because most of them have ensured that they already own everything they desire. But a good bottle is surely always an acceptable present for a man, or wine-minded woman.
To find the unequivocally acceptable bottle it is probably useful to consider what wine professionals give each other – although you might be surprised by the most common currency: top quality olive oil, from as obscure a source as possible. A cutting edge South African wine estate with its own frantoia such as Tokara for example. Or one of New Zealand’s growing number of internationally admired olive oil producers such as Blumenfeld, or The Village Press whose oil is available in the UK from www.kaikitchen.co.uk. This sort of bottled present implies that both donor and recipient are knowledgeable and fastidious about food as well as wine.
Those who make, sell or write about wine tend not to regard their bread and butter as a suitable gift. Presenting a bottle of something that you sell looks suspiciously like dropping off a sales sample. But there are a few exceptions to this rule.
My own wine racks contain several bottles of wine made by wine professionals not generally regarded as wine producers. There is for example the stunningly good Sirita, a California Merlot made by uber-sommelier Larry Stone of Rubicon in San Francisco (see latest news about him) and Bridey's Shiraz, as yet untried, named after the daughter of Melbourne wine writer Max Allen. But these are unusual. There is one sort of wine above all others that is most often given by one wine lover to another.
Absolutely top quality champagne is regarded by even the most hard-bitten professional (and I refer to myself here) as a treat. I did a favour for a fellow Master of Wine and was thrilled when she rewarded me with a bottle of Dom Pérignon 1990. Now that’s classy, and comes in a very attractive box too – something that’s important when considering bottles as gifts. You should count £100 or $150 as a bargain price for this treasured commodity today, and can locate stockists internationally on www.winesearcher.com. It is drinking beautifully now but no-one would turn up their noses at the current release Dom Pérignon 1998 (best kept a few years), or 1996 (still a little bit young) or, ideal from drinking now, 1995.
For just a little more you could give an even more elegant bottle, the swan-necked one that is characteristic of Krug, whose 1990 and 1989 are drinking so superbly at the moment. This is a real insider’s champagne and giving it would shine reflected glory on the donor. Best price for the exceptionally complex but still youthful 1989 in London is £120 at Jeroboams while Harvey Nichols have the wonderfully toasty, full bodied 1990 for ‘just’ £112. Selfridge’s has London’s best range of champagne while Nickolls & Perks of Stourbridge usually have some of the best prices. The multi-vintage Krug Grande Cuvée currently on sale in the UK may be easier to find but is much rawer to taste at the moment.
If you want a rather less expensive, less obvious but no less delicious champagne, you could consider the highly unusual Clos des Goisses which comes from a single steep, south-facing chalky slope above the river Marne. The producers Philipponnat release the wine only when it is ready to drink and the currently available vintages are the broad, rich 1991 and much tauter, crisper 1992 – both £54 a bottle from The Cellar Door of Overton in Hampshire, or just over $100 from K&L of San Francisco for instance. Again, winesearcher.com can reveal stockists all over the world.
But not everyone likes champagne, and people in some professions – fashion and public relations for example – come across so much of it that it may not seem a particularly exciting gift.
For these people one bottle of sublime and classic red can be a much more welcome alternative. There is something wonderfully understated about the Ch Lafite label with its fine engraving of the château in its own well timbered grounds but Baron Philippe de Rothschild was no fool when he developed the idea of commissioning a different artist each year to design a unique label for each vintage of Lafite’s neighbour Ch Mouton-Rothschild. Some of the bottles can look very special indeed. But it can be difficult to find single bottles of this sort of very grand bordeaux which is normally sold only in cases and when far too young to drink (though try Peter Wylie Fine Wines of Cullompton, Devon and Reid Wines of Hallatrow near Bristol).
A great, similarly-decorated choice for any lover of Australian wine would be Leeuwin Estate’s Art Series Chardonnay (one of the best two Chardonnays in Australia) and Cabernet Sauvignon. This is one of the most famous producers in Margaret River, Western Australia’s wine tourism jewel, which stages world-famous concerts each year. The 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon is particularly successful and can already be enjoyed now. Four Walls Wine Company of Chilgrove, Sussex sells it at around £25 a bottle. The Chardonnay, current vintage 2002, is generally around £32.
You may wish to go for quantity rather than quality. A case of bottles of the same wine has something special about it – particularly if the case is handsome and wooden rather than crumbling and cardboard. You could buy six or a dozen (the standard case capacity) bottles of one of the many wines I have recommended over the past few weeks and have them packed in a smart wooden case. Most of those used by merchants in the UK are supplied by The Wine Box Company of London SW2 (tel 7737 4040 www.winebox.co.uk) which sells a wide range of sizes (from single bottle to 12) and different models.
Another great, and durable, present for wine lovers is the wine book du moment which, in late 2005, is undoubtedly Hugh Johnson's delicious professional memoir A Life Uncorked – illustrated too.
May you choose and receive well.