Tasteful Tidings

This holiday season, delight your friends and family with thoughtful, handpicked gifts of fine wines.

When gifting a bottle of wine, celebrate what’s inside by adding a modest but unique gift-wrap with one of three
suggested bottle-wrapping techniques to complement the style and personality of each wine.

The Kraft Wrap: For a modern rustic touch, use chalkboard or butcher paper, chalk or pen, a ribbon, and baker’s twine. Evoke the feeling of a special offering from a refined yet laid-back California wine country restaurant. Try this with the bold 2016 Bear Flag Zinfandel or the farmhouse chic 2015 MacMurray Estate Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.

The Minimalist Gift-Wrap: For a simple yet polished style that complements any bottle, select the wrapping paper design of your choice to create a band that allows your recipients to be delighted when they unwrap to reveal the label. Try this with the understated 2016 Talbott Vineyards Kali Hart Chardonnay.

The Dinner Napkin: For a touch of elegance that lets your recipient know that this bottle is truly special, use a cloth dinner napkin and a ribbon. Try this with these classic Napa Valley wines: 2015 Louis M. Martini Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon and 2016 William Hill Estate Winery Napa Valley Chardonnay. Double or triple your gift to result in a complete set of napkins.

For each wrapping style above, you can add a decorative accent such as greenery or a bow to the bottleneck along with one of these four holiday tags.

Make each bottle of fine wine your special way of sharing tidings of comfort and joy this season!

Learn about wine bottle gifting hacks here.

Great Wines for Gifting

Choose from this curated list of top-rated wines below to match the palate of each person on your list.

The 2016 Bear Flag Zinfandel embodies the rugged independent spirit of early California settlers who rebelled against tyranny and fought for independence in 1846 and inspired the Golden State’s motto, “Eureka!” Bear Flag celebrates forward thinking individuals prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve their dreams. Sourced primarily from Sonoma County’s distinguished Dry Creek Valley, the wine is complex with a pinch of spice, vanilla, and dark fruit elegance. Full-bodied yet supple, Bear Flag stands tall as its namesake and is well-structured with an All-American backbone. This bold wine has blueberry and blackberry flavors and is balanced with a toasty oak aroma and satisfying level of acidity. Bear Flag Zinfandel’s rich bouquet and finish is sure to please the palates and warm the hearts of all who partake.

Complimenting the bravado of Bear Flag, the 2015 MacMurray Estate Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Noir is a masterful blend with soft, round, delicate flavors. The offering is sourced primarily from four of MacMurry’s Russian River Valley Vineyards. More than two-thirds of the fruit was selected from the MacMurray Ranch Vineyard, where the Pinot Noir basked in the sun of the vineyard’s upper valley to ripen and offer traces of dark cherry flavors, and Two Rock Vineyard, which contributed complex fruit and autumn woods accented with delicate and mellow oak notes from barrel aging.

Bright and forward, the 2016 Talbott Vineyards Kali Hart Chardonnay is 100 percent estate-grown from the Sleepy Hollow Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County. A vanilla and brioche bouquet accentuates the palate, flourishing with flavors of bose pear, pineapple, and melon, leading to a soft, clean finish with mineral and hard spice notes. This new legend of Sleepy Hollow shines brightly day or night with prosperous, concentrated flavors and intense character from this illustrious vineyard.

Featuring a balance of wild berries, plum, mocha, and licorice, the 2015 Louis M. Martini Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon was produced with grapes primarily sourced from its Frei Ranch vineyards in the Dry Creek Valley and the Barrelli Vineyard in the Alexander Valley. Touches of Merlot, Petite Sirah, and Cabernet Franc heighten the wine’s roundness and depth.

The 2016 William Hill Estate Winery Napa Valley Chardonnay shares notes of apple, pear, tropical fruits, and lemon balanced with coconut and baking spices, leading to a finish worthy of a celebratory toast. With grapes selected from several distinct Napa Valley regions, William Hill is a powerful expression of a noble varietal from a New World class appellation.