The holidays are here, and most of us are likely shopping for gifts, wrapping presents, and getting our homes and dining tables ready for festive celebrations.
Today I found myself doing something silly – I ALMOST bought a bottle of wine for my friend Wine Diva Lifestyle. What was I thinking?! She’s the wine steward at a major gourmet luxury grocery store. She knows tons of info about wine, tastes lots of wine, is treated to fabulous wines, and enjoys industry discounts at all our local area wineries. How could I possibly think I could find a bottle that would interest her?
Let’s be more thoughtful and creative with our Christmas gifts for our wine friends, instead of just jumping to “She works in wine, I should get her this wine item.”
I can’t tell you how many of my non-wine-industry friends (we call them “civilians”) have brought over ultra-fancy corkscrews as hostess gifts to my (pre-COVID) parties. I own many, many corkscrews and other simple ways to open wine bottles; and now I have a drawer of unused hard-to-use fancy bottle openers sitting there taking up space. Friends meant well though, “Oh, Carrie is a wine blogger, she must need a way to open bottles after photo shoots.”
Our friends who work at wineries, at tasting rooms, at wine shops, at restaurants and bars, and in other aspects of the wine industry, get gifted with lots of unneeded (and frankly, unwanted) “wine crap” every Christmas.
(As an aside, it’s very generous of our friends and family to give us gifts, and we don’t mean to appear ungrateful. We’re just trying to save you $ and lost time shopping on things that will likely be regifted).
I once had a generous grandmother who thought that because I happened to own two cats, I then needed all sorts of cat-themed decor in my home. For Christmas I would get brown umbrellas with cat motifs; a cat doormat; a cat shower curtain; kitchen towels with cats on them; fabric cat tote bag; a cookie jar shaped like a cat, etc. You get the drift!
The same thing happens to our wine industry friends. They’re gifted wine kitchen towels, wine doormats, wine t-shirts, wine sayings wooden signs, wine accessories, and lots of undrinkable cheap wine.
Please, this year, do NOT gift these items to your friends/family who work in the wine business:
- Cork storage decorative devices – If we save our corks, we already have plenty of these!
- Wine-themed decor (towels, bath mats, shower curtains, throw pillows, wood sayings signs, etc): We need a break from wine when we get home after a long day talking about wine. We don’t need to look at it on our walls and all over our home!
- Wine-themed clothes: hats, t-shirts, tote bags, socks. We already wear these all day long; it’s nice to get home and get into pajamas that might not have wine bottles on them. (I make an exception here for a clever or sparkly wine face mask).
- Corkscrews, electric bottle openers and other wine openers: Believe me, if we need to get a bottle open, we’ll find a way to get it open. Most wine professionals I’ve seen even scoff at my simple wing corkscrew, preferring a much simpler waiters’ corkscrew.
- Wine aerators – These are unnecessary and we’ll be able to aerate our wine just fine. They’re gimmicky.
- Wine glasses – It’s unlikely you’ll find some that match our existing ones; and we all probably have large cupboards full of many, many wine glasses as it is. Nor do we need one-off humorous glittery, painted wine glasses unless you know us REALLY well and the saying on the glass is an in-joke or something.
- Decanters – These take up SO much space! Your wine industry friend likely already owns enough of these.
- Wine bottle stoppers: If you really must, these are at least useful and don’t take up lots of space. But count on us already owning many, many of these.
- Wine books – Your friend likely already has that book and has read it, unless it just came out in the last 30 days.
- Wine Christmas ornaments – Wine professionals are gifted these OFTEN, because ornaments are inexpensive, pretty and shiny. There are only so many wine bottle and wine grape themed ornaments made, so you’re likely gifting something your recipient already owns a few identical copies of.
Now, these are all lovely gifts for your family members who are new to wine, enjoy wine, and are frequent consumers of wine – but who aren’t employed in the industry. We definitely list some decorative wine items, bottle stoppers, wine glasses, decanters and wine Christmas ornaments in our Amazon shop, but wouldn’t dream of gifting them to a fellow industry compatriot.
And last but not least,
WINE! Please don’t gift wine unless you are a sommelier, a wine steward, a wine connoisseur, or you have a very interesting aged vintage to share. Nothing from Trader Joe’s please (although wine industry folks do buy, drink and enjoy Trader Joe’s wines on their own). Wine industry people have access to LOTS of great wine already; and likely have over flowing home wine cellars and serious storage problems mounting up. What we need is the perfect evening to open a great bottle to share with friends.
What to gift to your wine industry friend then? Cookbooks, cocktail books, chocolate, gourmet foods (especially olive oils and vinegars) and liquor! After a long day spent on their feet talking about wine or physically moving heavy cases of it around, and possibly tasting it in a professional capacity, your friend wants to relax at home with a COCKTAIL! While thumbing through a beautiful cookbook of recipes they’re too tired to cook but can fantasize about pairing with some of the wines in their overburdened wine cellars.
Happy holidays,
Carrie
