As someone who is often accused of being impossible to buy for, I give you my definitive list of gift ideas for people who like to drink wine.
- Kleenite glass cleaner because sometimes there’s more wine than clean-up at the end of the night. It works wonderfully on glasses and decanters. I ordered my bottle from Amazon.
- A drying rack for stemmed glasses and say goodbye to condensation inside the glass.
- Drying cloth—mine is from Riedel. It really is the only way to get wine glasses sparkling. Well, I guess you could always turn the lights way down low.
- Alternatively, cross off number two and three and buy stemless glasses that can go in the dishwasher. Much to the horror of the friendly salesperson at Williams-Sonoma, I put my Riedel stemless glasses in the top rack of my dishwasher and knock on wood, they don’t seem worse for wear.
- A decanter is a must-have to really appreciate the complexity Cabs and Bordeaux without aging them for decades. We have some high-end Riedel decanters and tend to use the Riedel decanters from Target. As much as I love our spiral Riedel decanter that I bought for my husband on our 25th wedding anniversary, cleaning it and making sure the twists in the glass are not harboring and leftover water makes using it a pain.
- A drying spindle for decanters is a must-have. Before I started using ours religiously, I decanted a Caldwell cab before I realized there was a tiny puddle of water in the bottom of the vessel. My tears mixed with the cab and the leftover rinse water. We still drank it, though.
- Chalk markers because no one remembers what their charm looks like after the second glass of wine. Write their name on the base and you’ll always know who left took the extra pour and didn’t finish it. Put that name on the naughty list.
- Wine! Why is this so hard?
Next week, I’ll share what wines I’d love to find under my tree!