To Have and to Hold: Wine Gifts For Now or Later

The problem is, who has the time to do the thinking? For several weeks, we have been suggesting a wide variety of wines for holiday entertaining, but we haven't yet mentioned any labels suitable for gift giving.

Actually, I take that back, because most of the wines that appear in today's column would make excellent gifts. But if you are looking for wine that will appeal to a collector who might actually store it in a cellar for a few years, you need to think about some other choices.

The gift bottle should make a statement and, for the perfect touch, you could combine it with a book that has more information about the wine you have selected and the region from which it originates. Add some glasses, or perhaps a decanter, and you have a gift that will get the attention of any wine lover.

Private wine shops are great places to look for wine accessories, while Barbara Jo's Books to Cooks at 1128 Mainland St. is the best place to look for the latest wine books.

W. H. Puddifoot, at 2350 West 41st Ave., has an incredible selection of high-quality wine glasses by Riedel that come designed for specific grape varieties and/or styles of wine. That means you can include a wine glass or two specifically designed to be used with a syrah-based wine, add a book on the Rhone Valley or the Barossa Valley and voila, you have a gift that is memorable and thoughtful.

Today we look at six possible gift ideas you can take into the store, but there are many more to choose from. If you need help, ask for some advice from an in-store wine consultant.

There are few chardonnays worth cellaring outside of some top Burgundian names, but Penfolds Yattarna Bin 144 Chardonnay 2001 is one of them and, somewhat surprisingly, it hails from Australia. This is serious, almost "Chablis-style" white wine from its green tints and lemon/lime mouth-watering flavours to its creamy, leesy, flinty complex finish. Yattarna continues to improve with each vintage and the '01 looks like it will be a good one for another five to seven years.

Great vintages make good wines even better and that's the case with Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Spatlese 2003. Its white peach and mineral-scented nose spiked with honey, spicy clover and red apple notes is intoxicating. The acidity and sweetness balance is perfect, and the rest of the creamy citrus, mineral, apricot flavours and orange fruit are a bonus. A delicious riesling you can age forever.

The rush to red wine exposed French and Australia syrah/shiraz and all the other grapes winemakers like to add to the mix to make a plain-Jane shiraz/syrah more interesting. The Holy Trinity Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2000 is one such benefactor and a great label to give away to an ardent red wine fan. It's ripe, round, smooth and warm with plum, vanilla and cola flavours and smoky cedar, orange peel notes. It's fully mature -- this one is ready to drink.

Another white not to be overlooked is the always-in-demand grand cru Chablis. One of the best in the market is the Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis Les Clos. Few white wines can rival Chablis Les Clos and if you add to that the Brocard name, you have a serious gift. Look for elegant and, in 2002, juicy Chablis with citrus, green apple, smoky flint, honey flavours and a spicy, minty finish. This is a fabulous bottle with fine acidity and finesse.

There may be bigger names in Italian wine and Amarone, but the best I've tasted this year (by a long margin) is Allegrini Amarone Classico 2000. Call it new wave or modern Italian but, any way you put it, the Allegrini Amarone is unlike any other.

Clean and fragrant, it has a big chocolate-pudding, vanilla and white pepper nose with streaks of cigar, cassis jam and coffee aromas. It's round and rich and thankfully devoid of the animal and leather flavours that can plague its contemporaries. You will love its cherry jam, pepper, chocolate, licorice and plum pudding flavours. It's youthful and alcoholic with fine intensity and the perfect structure for aging.

My final pick is a totally mature bottle of vintage port. The Ferreira 1982 Vintage Port is all you could want in a 22-year-old fortified wine. It has a black pepper, stewed tea leaf nose with licorice root and spicy, pruney, dried fig aromas. At this point the palate is sweet, round, soft and unctuous with fine flavours of chocolate, tea, licorice, dried figs and prunes. There's a dusting of light tannins on the finish and some spirity notes, but with excellent concentration. It's well on its way to becoming a lovely old bottle of port. Well done and super value -- hold or drink.