Category: Holidays

If it’s good enough for Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill, it should be good enough for just about anyone on your list.

There’s a good chance there’s someone on your Christmas list that you know would enjoy wine as a gift. There’s an equally good chance that if they’re a genuine enthusiast, they spend fifty to a hundred dollars on a bottle of wine with some regularity. So you may think that’s one quick gift out of the way, but then realize – once confronted with hundreds of wines to choose from – that you’re not really all THAT sure what they have in their cellar, or what EXACTLY would bring a smile to their face when they’re unwrapping it. So here’s a strategy: why not buy them something interesting to drink that *isn’t wine. Like a nice whiskey, brandy, port, or even a mescal or tequila? Fine spirits have another little side benefit: you’re almost certainly not going to a come across a “bad” bottle. We’ve rounded up just a few of the more interesting (and pricey) gift packages we have in stock below. We’re being a little whimsical to make a point; we don’t expect you to rush in by Christmas and drop a couple thousand dollars on a Remy Martin Louis XIII Cognac, or a Highland Park 40 Year Old scotch, but you might very well find that something like the Dewar’s Signature in a wooden gift box to be just the thing for about a tenth that price. And that’s what we’d *really like to bring to your attention. Our store is unfortunately a bit cramped at about 2500 sq ft, so many of our nearly 3,000 wines and several hundred fine whiskeys and brandies are at your feet, high above your head, or in our “secret cellar” in the rear of the store. Like our selection of vintage ports, which cover most years through the 80’s and 90’s through the present. Or our selection of magnums and jeroboams. So next time you’re in the store, remember things are looking up. Or at least you are, if you’re perusing our selection of hundreds of fine spirits.

The pink elephants on the Delirium Noel label are typical of the capricious spirit of Christmas beer.

Although specially brewed Christmas beers have been a tradition in Denmark, Belgium and Scandinavia for centuries, it was not too many years ago in America that if you mentioned “beer” and “Christmas” in the same sentence, it probably conjured images of your beer-drinking uncle sitting in the easy chair in the corner. Well THAT certainly has changed. These days, failure to have on hand one of the many amazing seasonal and holiday beers that are available could probably be considered a major faux pas as a holiday host. The term “Christmas Beer” means something a little more specific in each of the northern European countries that created them, but they all have a few things in common. To stand up to the cold and the season’s heartier foods, they are often brewed with the years late-harvest grains to be intentionally higher in alcohol, and will often embody more of the brewers creativity and playfulness. Styles and character will range from the fairly conventional to all-out flavor riots of nutmeg, cinnamon, chocolatiness, and fruit, but the beer is crafted with the season in mind, so they tend to be flamboyant and expressive. And in spite of the capricious labels featuring naughty elves and pink elephants, it’s interesting to note that we in fact probably owe the existence of these beers to the Christian monks at abbeys throughout Europe who developed and refined these beer-making methods as far back as the 1300’s. But never mind the history of these beers, think about the present. The Christmas present. Many of these beers are in more festively labeled wine-bottle sized bottles, and make great gifts. We don’t recommend getting too carried away with the wrapping though; the beer lover in your life will probably waste no time cracking the bottle and offering to share it with you. We’ve featured about half of the Christmas and winter beers we have on hand below, contact us if you’re looking for one you don’t see. If it’s available in Michigan, we probably have it.

Although Jackie O christening a ship is an appropriately festive usage, we think this otherwise a waste of perfectly good Champagne!

That little toast is often misattributed to Tom Waits, but was in fact first popularized much earlier, by the Anglo-Irish artist Francis Bacon*. And he in any case was probably just giving his famous name to an Edwardian toast that had been in use since at least 1830. Who said it first is really of less concern than the fact that it highlights one of the great things about Champagne. Although any time two or more people are sharing a libation a toast is in order, Champagne takes it all to a celebratory level with the popping of the cork, the dancing effervescence of the bubbles, and the lively, invigorating aromas and sensation on the palate. Nothing speaks to the bonds of friendship and trust more strongly than the gift of a bottle of bubbly, and the shared toast can range from words full of hope and dreams to a loving jab at one’s mates. It’s this very perception of Champagne as an “event” that probably prevents many of us from enjoying it more often. Buying a bottle of pricier champagne can feel like a big commitment, and you may have on occasion felt – whether buying it as a gift or for yourself – that buying another bottle would have been nice, so you could try it in a less-festive setting, as part of a nice dinner. That’s part of why we’re offering some great prices on the purchase of two bottles (see below), but the other reason is that we just want to help spread a little cheer this holiday season. That’s why we’ve also rounded up some amusing toasts, which you’ll find after our featured Champagnes, below. Have an amusing toast of your own? Feel free to share it as a comment. We’ll be back with some more mid-price sparklers next week. We have about a hundred to choose from, starting in the $10-$15 range, all the way up to some of the nicer ones featured here. And of course we have some non-alcohol selections for your designated driver. More bubbles next week. Cheers!

If you have a book on your wine reference shelf called “The Perfect Wines For Thanksgiving Dinner” you should probably burn it. If you check a dozen authoritative sources on what wine to serve on Thanksgiving, you’ll probably get a dozen answers, naming – in different combinations – every varietal, style, and appellation known to man. Amongst those answers though, one consistent truth comes through, which is that there IS no perfect wine for the traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. What wine could possibly be a perfect match for a dinner that features turkey, ham, cranberries, heavily herbed stuffing, potatoes with gravy, and the dreaded green bean casserole, baked yams with marshmallows, or aunt Marge’s legendary suspended fruit Jell-O? The most realistic answer to this question is: don’t select wines that will be lost in the riot. Loosen up a bit, drink what you LIKE to drink, and use common sense. And common sense in this case suggests wines that are lighter, and perhaps less complex. Which in our opinion suggests a broad variety of whites, especially a Riesling, Gewurztraminer, or even wines that you would typically reserve for dessert, like a Beeren Auslese (see below). And for reds, a Pinot Noir or maybe a nice Rhone (we have about 50). Another nice idea is to pick a lighter, not-too-dry sparkler, which can find its way through a variety of foods, and is a great palate cleanser. And of course don’t forget the versatile and fresh fruitiness of this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau, or for that matter any other Beaujolais. David, the store’s general manager, has selected a few good values below, but we have over 2500 wines on hand, so stop by the store or use the search box at the top of the page to help you ponder. But most of all, have an enjoyable Thanksgiving feast! Dave’s picks below.

The 2002 Slate.com article Red Scare – Stay away from that Beaujolais Nouveau, sucker is a perfect example of the kind of snobbishness that can get in the way of simply enjoying wine. In it, the author slams the wine as “a wine mainly borne of its worst vineyards, a wine barely removed from the fermentation vat, a wine that is nothing more than pleasantly tart barroom swill“. If you share this attitude toward the annual release of the Beaujolais Nouveau, maybe it’s time to un-stuff your shirt for a moment, and have some fun with it for what it is. Granted, it’s fair to say that the wine industry over-marketed the autumn tradition of rushing out the year’s recent harvest while its better grapes are still just beginning to become the great wines of Beaujolais. But the real marketing frenzy of recent decades is over, and at the end of the day the nouveau is a fun wine, whose youthful fruit expresses an enthusiasm for life and the rewards of the harvest. This recent Houston Chronicle piece fair-handedly explains how Georges Duboeuf’s marketing savvy may have done for Beaujolais what white zinfandel did for rosé, but takes a much more positive spin. In it, the author shares an example of how to enjoy the annual release. On Thursday morning next week, French father and son restaurateurs Georges and Jean-Philippe Guy will “pop a cork of the 2010 Nouveau, slice some saucisson – cured, air-dried country sausage – and toast each other“. They of course will be doing in the crisp fall air of  the region, but what a wonderful image. We’re sorry to say we can’t help you get to the French countryside by next week, but we WILL have some Albert Bichot Beaujolais Nouveau on hand. Even if your palate resists such childish grape expressions, the light fruitiness and colorful label of a Nouveau is a fantastic complement to holiday dinners, and with its broadly accessible character, a great gift through the end of the year.