Wedding Gifts for Winos

October 5, 2006 5:54 PM

I want to buy my friends a nice bottle of wine as a wedding gift, to help them start a collection.You know, something under $100 that they can keep and let age or whatnot.

What are your recommendations? Also it would be nice to get recommendations on shops in NYC or books that can help me with this, and how they could store just the one bottle if they're not interested in acquiring more. I want something special that can be kept till they have their first child or whatever. I know what wines I like, I just don't know about the whole "keep wines and let them age" process.

Oh, they are not particular about brands, but I want a nice one.

posted by sweetkid to food & drink (14 comments total)

It's proberly above your price range, but you can't go wrong with a bottle of Australian (yay!) Penfolds Grange. I think they have a 2000 for about US$200. The peak drinking is from 2010 to 2025, so that gives them, and ineed the stork, lots of time.
posted by oxford blue at 6:00 PM on October 5, 2006

Shop: good value is warehouse wines and spirits, astor place & b'way.

You can't go wrong with a Chateauneuf du Pape. Get one from a good recent year, and let it sit for 10-15 more. There may be better bargains out there, but it has cachet.
posted by lalochezia at 6:49 PM on October 5, 2006

A few words of caution.

If your friends don't have somewhere quiet, dark and cool, your gift will be wasted. Where I live you can pay for wine to be cellared in a climate-controlled warehouse for a few dollars per bottle per year. You may want to think about prepaying for storage as part of your gift.

Second, are they wine aficionados? Because this is a sweet and handsome idea, but if they don't have a taste for the really good stuff, this is kind of wasted on them. Honestly, to appreciate really expensive wine, you need to drink it semi-regularly.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:20 PM on October 5, 2006

They're not aficionados per se, but they do like the good life. Also, what qualifies as dark and cool? Would the closet do? They live in a New York apartment (that they bought).
posted by sweetkid at 7:24 PM on October 5, 2006

"A temperature of 50° F to 55 ° F and a Relative Humidity of 60% to 70% are ideal for long-term wine storage."

Dark is key as well, to stave off the development of skunky taste notes (and a few other things).
posted by jamaro at 7:41 PM on October 5, 2006

Château Calon Ségur is classy, although some vintages might go above your quoted price range. They do have the prominent heart on the label, which might be appropriate for the occasion.
posted by gimonca at 7:45 PM on October 5, 2006

The Antinori Tignanello is an amazing wine for under $100, plus it has a really nice label.

The Tignanello is a Super Tuscan which has sort of a neat rogue history.

I disagree that nice wine is wasted on someone who doesn't drink it regularly. Even a casual drinker will notice the difference between an average wine and a great wine.

BTW, I 'discovered' the Tignanello on my own honeymoon.
posted by jonah at 8:58 PM on October 5, 2006

Nice wine is not wasted on the untutored, no. But the kind of wine that lives and benefits from 10 years of cellaring is. The kind of one that benefits from a year or two, well sure. And lovely gestures are never wasted, but hey, I'm just trying to make sure that sweetkid gets the maximum gift-buzz from his/her buck.

Dark means dark. Cool means around 10C if you can swing it, but failing that, no great extremes of temperature, and not above 20C if you can help it.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:04 AM on October 6, 2006

I think a gift that requires that kind of care is a little bit of a burden on newlyweds, unless they are already well settled in. Not that they wouldn't appreciate it, but a case of nice but not insane wine that they can drink young and enjoy together now, plus hold back a couple of bottles for later if things work out that way, might be a kinder gift.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:29 AM on October 6, 2006

Would the closet do? They live in a New York apartment (that they bought).

No. NYC apartments are terrible places to store wine (I had some really nice bottles go skunky on me, and I'm still bitter). And I agree with everything i_am_joe's_spleen has said; if your friends aren't wine aficionados, don't get them a bottle of something tannic (which is the kind of wine that benefits from aging). Go to a wine store (a good one, not one of those mom-and-pop places) and tell them what you've told us; they'll find you a bottle of delicious wine that your friends will appreciate now and don't need to hold (and worry about) for a decade.
posted by languagehat at 6:58 AM on October 6, 2006

Oh, another possibility is madeira: it's cheaper than almost any other great wine, and it stores well in just about any conditions. Downside: most people aren't aware how good it is, so your friends may just smile politely and stick it in the back of the liquor cabinet to gather dust.
posted by languagehat at 7:00 AM on October 6, 2006

I like the idea of footing the bill for storage somewhere, especially if you really like the idea of a wine that will mature in 10-15 yrs.
posted by craven_morhead at 10:35 AM on October 6, 2006

Whatever you get, I recommend getting it at Moore Brothers. They climate-control the entire store and nearly all of their stock is unavailable anywhere else. With each wine they'll package a full page description of it, which is great for wine novices.
posted by nev at 8:04 AM on October 7, 2006

If you haven't used this yet, Union Square Wines has the Enomatic, which is intensely fun even for me (the opposite of a wine expert)... If you sent them to the Enomatic with a gift certificate, that could be a great time for them both.
posted by allterrainbrain at 10:34 PM on October 7, 2006