Wine Lover Advent Calendar

Should you get really busy, you could use any of them as a hostess gift, depending on what is appropriate for the event you may be invited to. No one will complain if you open one of the wines on the list to serve at home.

Our advent calendar offers 24 curated wine gift ideas to get you through December with still plenty of time to hunt them down. After 40 years in this game, there isn’t much I haven’t seen, and most of it I never want to see again. What follows are some surefire wine-related gift ideas and suggestions.

What wine lovers need

1. Pulltap Double-Hinged Waiters Corkscrew, ($15-$20), is the best tool for casual wine drinkers. It is a no-fuss, all-in-one wine opener, foil cutter, and bottle cap opener whose allure is an ease-of-use, double-boot arm that creates two leverage points for effortless opening. The coated non-stick screw, or worm, ensures easy cork penetration and removal. The serrated steel knife cuts through the thickest of foils. If cared for, it will open hundreds of bottles. It’s a great stocking stuffer.

2. Champagne is the ultimate wine to gift or pour over the holidays. One of the best all-around and widely available is the Champagne Pol Roger Brut Reserve, ($90)It is among the lightest, most elegant expressions of multi-vintage champagne, creamy and smooth with a sleek but lengthy finish.

3. Le Nez Du Vin Red Wine Kit 12 Aromas, ($170), explores the scents of red wine, focusing on some of the primary aromas. It includes an informative book and text cards explaining how these essential aromas appear and their wine types. It suits beginners or those who want to improve their tasting skills.

4. Tantalus Old Vines Riesling 2021, Okanagan Valley ($44). This East Kelowna Riesling is a B.C. treasure. The fruit is intense, pitching limy mandarin flavours and electric acidity. Dry and sophisticated, this will work with just about any food you pair it with over the holidays. Versatile, sophisticated, and local.

5. Road 13 winery is now shipping its six-bottle ($266) or 12-bottle ($566) Advent Calendar. The calendar also includes a complimentary all-access pass for two to an exclusive Road 13 experience at a future event, in the tasting room, or off site. Details at road13vineyards.com.

6. Collectors love wines that can age from great vintages. If a wine geek is on your Christmas list, consider the Luce 2019 Toscana IGT ($159.99), a Super Tuscan Montalcino that blends the roundness and softness of Merlot with the structure and elegance of Sangiovese. It’s one for the cellar.

7. A holiday super pour is Ray Signorello’s Edge Cabernet Sauvignon 2021, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County, Calif. ($49.99). The style is savoury Sonoma/Alexander Valley with a subtle Napa Valley polish. Edge is amazingly stylish for an entry-level premium Cabernet; it is the best Edge we have tasted.

8. Coravin Timeless Three+ ($329) is a preservation system that allows you to preserve still wines for weeks, months, or even years. It comes with two Coravin Pure Argon Capsules, two Coravin Screw Caps and a Coravin Aerator, everything you need to enhance your wine experience. The system allows you to have a glass today and save the rest for when you’re ready — next week, next month, or even next year without pulling the cork. The Coravin screw caps allow you to do the same with any screw cap finished bottle.

9. Blue Mountain Gold Label Brut ($31.90) is a bottle to gift or have on hand in the fridge for unexpected guests or whenever you want to add a little sparkle to your life. Blue Mountain Gold Label Brut continues to set the benchmark for Canadian sparkling wine, consistently outperforming wines double its price. Drink or hold, you confidently serve it throughout the holidays with a variety of appetizers. WATCH: Oknagan Falls Sparkling Wine Video

10. Danby 36 Bottle Free-Standing Wine Cooler in stainless steel ($350) This is a perfect solution for challenged homeowners who want somewhere to protect a few bottles, especially in condominiums and

apartments that are usually warm environments. Your bottles will rest at the perfect temperature behind a tempered glass door designed to protect your collection from  potentially harmful ultraviolet rays. This space-saver that fits almost anywhere comes with a reversible door that opens from the left or right-hand side. It’s a good value.

11. Magnums or 1,500 ml bottles, make spectacular gifts, and they have the added advantage of lasting longer in the bottle, given that their oxygen-to-juice ratio is half that of a regular bottle. Here are two we love: Le Serre Nuove Dell’ Ornellaia 2021 ($185.99), an Ornellaia offspring from one of the finest vintages in Bolgheri. They say Champagne in a magnum is always at its best. Phillipe Gonet Grand Cru Blanc deBlanc 2007 ($194.99) — already 17 years old, will turn heads for whomever opens it.

12. Decanters have come a long way since the last century. You can spend a fortune on design, but in the end, the ones of simple, clear glass let the wine breathe and quickly

funnel the aerated wine into your glass. The stylish Williams Sonoma Reserve Wine Decanter ($115), efficiently aerates red and white varietals of any age before serving. It is perfect for old or new wines. It is dishwasher safe, but we recommend handwashing with soap and water.

13. Need a reliable, classy, white wine for holiday gatherings the Coro Meu Vermentino di Gallura 2021, Sardinia, Italy ($27) covers all the bases. It’s darker than its more northern mates, but it is fresh and pitching dried yellow flowers, refreshing lemons and wet stone mineral notes.  An excellent white for West Coast seafood dishes, fresh cheeses and assorted sushi rolls.

14. The Oxford Companion to Wine Kindle Edition ($44.99), is everything you could want to know about wine, available on your mobile Kindle for quick reference. This latest fifth edition benefits from the knowledge and experience of more than 100 new contributors and is more international than ever. It is a treasure trove of wine knowledge, but the alphabetical format and the links between the entries make it easy to navigate. This is a lifelong reference book.

15. The Damilano Lecinquevigne Barolo 2016, Piedmont, Italy ($66) is a catch-all red wine for Italian wine lovers, Barolo afficionados and food lovers — and given it’s already eight years of age — collectors. Look for fresh mineral salts, wild cherries, red currants, and summer strawberries with fading tannin. It is a classic just coming into its own. Drink or hold.

16. Tickets to the 46th annual Vancouver International Wine Festival are always a welcomed gift by wine lovers. From Feb. 22 to March 2, the 2025 festival will welcome 122 wineries representing 15 countries. This end-of-winter celebration of the grape features the wines of the U.S. West Coast complemented by B.C. wineries and global brands. Tasting room early bird tickets go on sale in early November at vanwinefest.ca.  

17. Sparkling wine is all the rage, but what do you do if you want a glass? A stopper will change your life, allowing an open bottle to stay fresh for days when refrigerated. The Stainless Steel Bettfor Champagne Stoppers, ($15) with a food-grade silicone leak-proof stopper, works on most sparkling wine bottles. It’s available solo, or in two- to six-packs in various colours. To use, you insert the stopper into the wine bottle and press the left and right handles. When you hear the click, it’s done. Just rinse and wipe to clean it, but it is dishwasher-safe.

18. Riedel Ouverture’s ($54 for two-pack) red wine glass is my choice for an all-purpose glass. At 12 ounces, it’s all you need in an everyday red or white glass that performs best about a third complete. The stem is long enough to handle the glass without warming the bowl with your hand. The bowl and shape allow for generous swirling to quickly aerate the wine and release aromas, and the thin rim enables the wine to interact with your palate quickly and efficiently.  Shop around because prices can vary.

19. The Durand Corkscrew (USD $145) was designed and made for anyone with an extensive collection of older bottles. Removing the cork is always a problem with old bottles, but not for a Durand corkscrew. Its combination of a classic long Teflon corkscrew with a forked-style wine opener allows you to easily remove any cork without ripping out the middles of crumbly corks or accidentally pushing a shrunken cork back into the bottle. Worth every penny.

20. The Albariño grape makes for a versatile white wine for snacks or appetizers to serve your guests, and we can’t say enough about Garzón Albariño Reserva 2023, Garzon, Maldonado, Uruguay ($25). The 2023 is the best release of the Garzon Albariño ever, crammed full of peach and citrus pith with a full, stony, mineral finish. Lip-smacking and lively, it was made for B.C. seafood.

21. Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, including Their Origins and Flavours Kindle Edition ($60). Calling all wine geeks. Authors Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, and Jose Vouillamoz worked with cutting-edge DNA analysis, detailing almost 1,400 distinct grape varieties and myriad correct (and incorrect) synonyms. Wine Grapes offers essential and original information in greater depth and breadth than has ever been available before. It is a lifetime gift.

22. How about a delicious, affordable, Monday-to-Friday red wine for the winter from Paul Mas, a Languedoc champion? We like the Arrogant Frog Ribet Red, Vin de Pays d’Oc, Languedoc, France ($12.99). The not-so-Arrogant Frog is a fun 55/45 mix of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, awash in black jammy fruit, chocolate, blackberries, and glossy vanilla at a giveaway price.

23. Stop breaking your wine glasses while you try to clean them. The Hold Everything Slim Stemware Cleaning Brush ($30), is a welcome stocking stuffer for wine glass freaks. Gently clean stemware of all shapes and sizes with a brush that maintains its performance and shape after countless washings. Its nonabsorbent, odour-resistant foam bristles leave wine and champagne glasses clean without scratching. You may never break another glass.

24. Port is grossly undervalued and the perfect tonic for late Christmas evening after all the guests are gone. A blazing fire, a book, and a glass of port could also be a civilized moment throughout the crazy season. A bottle of Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage Port ($28) is packed with black pie-fruit aromas, and black raspberry jam flavours flecked with dark chocolate. Best of all, it can sit on a side table for days, if not a week or two, for daily access.

This article originally appeared in The Vancouver Sun, November 6, 2024.

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