If you like it, save it! Save and organize all of the stuff you love in one place. If you like something… Click the heart, it's called favoriting. Favorite the stuff you like. We may have food down cold, but wine? This is where we'll conquer it. we don't want to drink alone. Today: How to find the perfect bottle of wine for your host or hostess. Giving gifts of wine at the holidays is, for me, like a year in review.I start by reviewing all the interactions I’ve had in the past year with the bottle's recipient. Then I review the wines I’ve tried this year that somehow “match up” with those interactions.This year, for example, my neighbor lady Judy and her husband Francis invited us over for a holiday dinner. Their son’s wedding this past summer was a very big deal for them, so my thoughts immediately went to celebratory sparkling wines. I am willing to spend a bit more money on a wine gift for them that honors their lives as parents, so I began to look for sparkling wines from Tasmania, like Arras Grand Vintage and 2002 Freycinet Radenti.

But the wine I’ve seen Francis drink that he loved most of all was a red, robust Bordeaux from the Merlot-dominant Right Bank. This, I thought, was my answer: 2007 Château Vignot St. Émilion Grand Cru. It illustrates my three rules of thumb when choosing a host or hostess gift of wine for the holidays -- and why it would be great for your hostess, too: Pick a wine that's “generalizable.” If you can’t find this specific bottle, you can “zoom out” to other areas nearby for similar red Bordeauxs. The bottle I've chosen is quite specific -- it's from one town (St. Emillon) and one grape (Merlot). The more specific the designation, the more expensive the bottle will be. To find something more general -- and less expensive -- look first for other wines from the St Émilion region. If that doesn’t work, you can try other wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank; there, the wines are still mostly made from Merlot but, since they aren't from one specific town, they will cost less.

Then, if that doesn’t work either, look for less specifically-classified Bordeaux, which will be labeled Bordeaux or Bordeaux Supérieur. More: A few more holiday wines to save your sanity. Don't pick something completely outside your budget. the best wines are those we drink with friendsThe great thing about Bordeaux is that, as mentioned above, you can find something very expensive, or more budget-friendly. best food and wine in dcA Grand Cru bottle, which is what I found for Francis, will be more expensive; best wine towns in europethis particular bottle retails at $36. wine clubs uk offersLess specific classifications, like the Bordeaux or Bordeaux Supérieur, will be more modestly priced. best wine in the world available in india

When you're headed to the store to pick up a bottle for a friend, you want to be sure that you will find something that you can afford!Focus on the recipient -- and their experience -- rather than your own tastes. Remember to concentrate on who’s receiving the gift. good white wine dryThe process of choosing a wine to give as a gift should both begin and end with them.What is the best wine gift you’ve ever given, or been given? Share your story in the comments! Our best tips for eating thoughtfully and living joyfully, right to your inbox. Let's Keep in Touch! Get the recipes and features that have us talking, plus first dibs on events and limited-batch products. (Oh, and $10 off your order of $50 or more in the Food52 Shop, too.) Your Email AddressGet More Food52 Name your first collection or try one of these: Sorry, this item is currently out of stock. Expected back in stock .

Notify me when it's back.We'll email you when it's available again. Thanks for signing up! Pick experts to follow for a better Food52.Wine-related gifts are a hit on any special occasion. Up the ante on your present-giving this holiday season with a wine bottle cooler.Americans sure love their wine. In 2014, they consumed more than 893 million gallons of the stuff. This wine craze shows no signs of stopping, with the consumption numbers pretty much steadily increasing since 1934, and the United States standing as the world's largest wine market since 2010. This Dionysian fever doesn't just mean that dinner parties across America have gotten increasingly more pleasant over the years: it also means that you can't go wrong with getting your of-age friends and family wine-related gifts for any special occasion.Chances are you've given out a few corkscrews over the years, maybe some diaphanous glass stemware sets, and a few aerating pourers that you were particularly proud of.

But in honor of the increasing interest in wine, consider upping the ante on your presents for the wine drinkers in your life with the gift of a wine bottle cooler. No longer is classy bottle storage only relevant to the likes of die-hard wine connoisseurs; with the growing stockpiles of riesling, sauvignon blanc, and much more in homes, it's time for even beginner wine drinkers to learn that their corked bottle of fermented grape juice needs to be stored properly.Even unacclimated tastebuds know when wine doesn't taste very good. This is often due to the fact that the alcohol must be both stored and served at just the right temperature to ensure optimal flavor and aroma. In other cases, it's because the bottle of wine only cost $2. But anyone with even some decent-quality bottles of wine is going to want to maintain these ideal wine temperatures :These slight gradations in degrees are difficult to achieve with a regular old refrigerator, especially when there's also a hunk of cheese in there that needs to be kept at 45°F.

That's where a wine bottle cooler comes in: not only does it clear up space in the fridge, it's also designed specifically for the purpose of storing wine at just the right temperature. Luckily, NewAir manufactures a variety of high-quality wine coolers powered by both compressor technology and thermoelectric technology. We've done the hard work and narrowed the options down to four units that are suitable gifts for the full spectrum of wine drinkers. NewAir AWC-270E Wine CoolerYou can enlighten your friend on the taste-preserving merits of their new wine cooler when you give them the NewAir AWC-270E 27 Bottle Compressor Wine Cooler . As the name suggests, this wine cooler operates on a compressor-based cooling system, and holds up to 27 standard bottles of wine. A compressor is also the mechanism that keeps fridges working, and generally provides slightly better cooling power than comparable thermoelectric systems (we'll get to that below). There are almost no downsides to compressors, other than that they're a notch noisier than their thermoelectric counterparts.

What this means is that the NewAir AWC-270E is a wine fridge that's ably to reliably keep wine bottles chilled down to 39°F. This, coupled with the unit's insulated glass doors and electronic thermostat with digital readout, gives you the perfect gift to give to someone looking to store their white wine at the correct temperature. The 27 bottle capacity on this freestanding, mid-range alcoholic beverage cooler is perfect for the everyday wine drinker who has one too many bottles to store: instead of sticking them in the pantry or leaving them out on the kitchen counter, they can neatly nestle them into the NewAir AWC-270E and have the interior LED light show off their budding collection. NewAir AWR-1600DB Wine CoolerOn the opposite side of the compressor wine cooler spectrum is the NewAir AWR-1600DB Dual Zone Premier Gold Series Wine Cooler . If your mom enjoys a little wine, but doesn't know much about it, and you get her this, have the smelling salts ready -- she might faint from being overwhelmed.

This is the type of wine cooler you get instead for people who want premier wine bottle storage. This is the type of wine cooler you get when you want to show off your wine knowledge, because the NewAir AWR-1600DB provides top-of-the-line reliability in the beverage storage arena . This cooler can be freestanding or built-in to a storage space. It holds up to 160 bottles of vintage, has an LCD display for accurate temperature control, dazzling gold internal LED lighting that doesn't impact the beverage temperature, and a stainless steel construction - to name a few of the features.The NewAir AWR-1600DB is also a dual zone wine cooler. If you remember from the chart above, each type of wine is ideally kept at slightly different temperatures. The dual zone construction means there's an upper area with its own temperature controls, which can be adjusted between 40° and 50°, and a lower area, which can be adjusted between 50° to 66°. This allows someone to keep their tart bright wine in the upper zone, and their heavy red wines down below, without compromising the taste of either.

The NewAir AW-121E is a compact, quiet wine cooler for loud people to enjoy.Thermoelectric wine coolers are quiet little guys perfect for smaller spaces. These appliances are great for easy-access, shorter-term bottle storage, with the only downside being that they may not handle warmer ambient temperatures as well as their compressor-powered brethren. If you give your party buddy the NewAir AW-121E 12 Bottle Thermoelectric Wine Cooler , for example, he'll hardly even notice it's running in his kitchen.That's not to say this unit isn't noticeable -- expect it to garner a lot of positive attention with a stainless steel and black exterior, soft LED internal lighting, and digital temperature readout. You might even end up wanting to keep this wine bottle cooler for yourself, because it's optimally sized for pretty much any living space. With a 12 bottle capacity, the AW-121E would work well set on a countertop for convenient, temperature-controlled wine access during a get-together, and so is an ideal gift for the socialite in your life. 

Weighing 26 pounds, this freestanding wine cooler features three pull-out wine racks, push button temperature control, a temperature range of 54-66° F, and vibration-free operation. With your newly acquired wine storage knowledge, you might want to put the NewAir AW-320ED 32 Bottle Dual Zone Thermoelectric Wine Cooler on your own wish list.Dual-zone temperature control isn't just for compressor units: with the NewAir AW-320ED 32 Bottle Dual Zone Thermoelectric Wine Cooler , your gift recipient will get a product that harmonizes space-saving wine bottle storage with twofold temperature control with a lot of other cool stuff. For example, check out the blue LED light gently illuminating the interior of this wine refrigerator; it looks like the bottles are chilling in the swankiest nightclub in the world.The temperature on each side of this wine bottle cooler can be controlled independently of the other within a range of 44-66°F. Similar to the AWR-1600DB Dual Zone Premier Gold model we talked about above, this cooler is more suitable for someone who knows a little something about wine storage particulars, but who perhaps wants something a little less formidable, or who has less storage space.