Whilst it might be tempting to buy someone a cheap bottle as a gift (thinking Cimarosa here), cheap wine will taste cheap!
It’s so important when buying wine as a gift that you follow a simple criteria.
A few guidelines below for buying wine as a gift:
- Firstly if you are going to a dinner party/hot date and you do buy a really nice bottle make sure to say to the host/hot date in private that it is a really good bottle and he/she should save it for a special occasion that way it doesn’t end up on the table as not everyone appreciates a good wine.
- Know your audience – if you are hosting a dinner party do not make the wine the main focus of the party keep it simple and make sure you have good universally appealing wine i.e. don’t bring a Pinotage to the table and expect everyone to know what it is, drink it or even care what it is as it isn’t to everyone’s taste.
Wedding wine is similarly important and should be treated as follows:
- I cannot stress this enough – if you are going to spend a lot of money on ensuring you have the best food for your guests you should at least aim to do the same with wine. Without offending anyone, I have had several instances where I have met couples (and I hope they aren’t reading this now) who are having their wedding in a 5 star location and they don’t want to spend any more than a fiver on a bottle of wine – no matter how amazing the food is or how amazing the venue, cheap wine is cheap.
Every Friday & Saturday in Brown’s Vineyard, there is a “Wine of the Week”. I open a different wine every week. Some are in the value range (€10) and some are premium wines.
It is a FREE way of getting to taste different wines without having to buy the bottle and you can will quickly find out the styles of wine you like and grape varieties.
Until next time. Happy Tasting.
READ ALSO – Barbara Brown: You get what you pay for when it comes to wine
