grapes of wrap

 By W.R. Tish

What to give the wine lover on your holiday gift list.

When it comes to gift giving, we’ve all heard “It’s the thought that counts.” But good intentions only go so far, and personal taste can be a tricky thing to gauge. How to pick out a tie that won’t just hang in a closet, a desk accessory that will actually make it to a desk, or even a Dustbuster that collects rather than gathers dust?

Fortunately, wine — an icon of good taste for centuries — has become a more flexible gift than ever, thanks in large part to its sheer popularity. Fueled by the steady ascent of all things epicurean, people are drinking more and better wine.

The standard practice of giving a well-known wine — such as Bordeaux or Champagne — is safe but passé, says Christian Navarro, a partner at Wally’s, Beverly Hills’ wine vendor to the stars. “People are going out of their way, striving to give something unusual,” Navarro says. “And there are so many great wines from all over the world now, that there are simply more opportunities to give something special.”

Overall wine quality is so high that wine lovers can feel confident doing the unthinkable: judging wine by its label. In fact, your impulses and intuition can help cut through the dizzying variety to find bottles that really fit the recipients. The wines below may seem fanciful by name, but each stands on its own tasteful merits. Plus, most are ready to drink — all the better for your gift to be uncorked with pleasure.

A HOBBYIST’S BEST FRIEND
The Old World blueprint for wine nearly always followed a staid label format, defining wine strictly via name and place, with little or no imagery. The New World has made wine far more creative, and vintners often link their wares with their passions.

The bottlings of Dry Creek Vineyard, for instance, feature lush watercolor images of sailboats — perfect for the sailing enthusiast who also appreciates a tasty Fumé Blanc or Zinfandel. Fly fishermen will find their angling pastime depicted on bottles of StoneFly Napa Valley Cabernet Franc. Golfers may be as surprised as wine critics were when they taste Greg Norman’s recently launched Australian wines, particularly the Cabernet Merlot. Cyclists shouldn’t lack for good wine either; get them a bottle of Hill of Content Grenache, also from Down Under, with a nifty two-wheeler on the label.

Budding horticulturists might appreciate a set of Georges Duboeuf’s modest but true-to-type table wines; each features a different flower, accurately detailed. An upscale alternative is the Perrier-Jouët Fleur de Champagne, with its elegant Art Deco design using pink anemones. Give your equestrian friends a bottle of Bridlewood, Iron Horse, or Wild Horse; all three California producers make a range of first-rate wines.

Animal lovers can be easy to shop for, depending on the type of animal, that is. Beyond the usual deer, fish, and fowl, possibilities also include zebras (Harrison, Napa); elephants (Cos d’Estournel, Bordeaux); panthers (Panther Creek, Oregon); insects (Vietti, Italy); frogs (Frog’s Leap, Napa); turtles (Madfish Bay, Australia); bunnies (Rabbit Ridge, Sonoma); bulls (Torres, Spain); boars (Eberle, Paso Robles); and even rhinos (La Spinetta, Italy).

For a real pet-lover’s wine, the Barbaresco called La Spinona honors a special breed of Piedmont hunting dog that earned its place on the label by saving the winery owner’s son from drowning in an irrigation lake when he was a baby. (The son later became a veterinarian, and his children are now making the wine!)

the art of winemaking
Art and wine couple easily. The most celebrated artist-rendered labels by far are Château Mouton-Rothschild’s, featuring such painters as Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol over the years. Recent (and lesser) vintages can be found for $200-$300; older and better ones run much higher. The art-label concept has been widely imitated, with varying levels of quality in the bottle. Two American wineries earning respect for their Artist Series Cabernet blends are Kenwood and Chateau Ste. Michelle (both around $60 per bottle). And Taittinger has long been adorning its vintage Champagnes in art; featured painters include Victor Vasarely and Roy Lichtenstein, with prices starting at $160.

Off the beaten artistic path but every bit as classy, the Staglin Family Vineyard from Napa Valley, whose Chardonnay ($50) and Cabernet ($65) are practically peerless, features the sculpture “Winged Woman Walking” by Stephen de Staebler on its labels. Flora Springs Sangiovese ($16), also from Napa, displays a detail from a sculpture of Psyche and Cupid embracing. And Didier Dageneau, the enfant terrible of the Loire Valley, uses magnified photos as the basis for his Pouilly-Fumé labels ($35-$55).

Music lovers need not be left out. The Bava family of Italy’s Piedmont region believes there is an emotional link between tastes and sounds — an affinity between stringed instruments and red wine on one hand, and brass instruments and white wine on the other. In turn, Bava Gavi, fresh and packed with fruit, features a hunting horn on the label; the barrique-aged Barbera d’Asti is long and elegant, earning the name Stradivario and bearing a violin.

Film buffs will appreciate film director and Napa Valley resident Francis Ford Coppola’s flagship wine, Rubicon, a dense, layered Bordeaux-style red. Given the $90 wine’s reputation as a cellar trophy, you also might want to include some of Coppola’s Rosso, an easy-drinking red modeled after the field blends planted by California immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. Call it wine for now and wine for later.

And don’t fans of high fashion deserve designer wines? In a joint venture with Gianfranco Ferré, the Frescobaldi family of Tuscany produced a special bottling of their 1993 Brunello di Montalcino. The F&F wine comes only in magnums, with a red-silk label and neck ribbon, in a black lacquer box for $400. For a racier gift, hunt down Piper-Heidsieck’s Corset bottle, designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. About $100, the bottle is encased in curve-hugging, fire-engine-red vinyl from cork to toe, secured with a single black lace.

GIFTS WITH PALATE IN CHEEK
Emblematic of the extent to which wine has shed its pretensions of decades past, more bottles are outright playful. Bonny Doon tops the joie du vin list with dandies such as Pacific Rim Riesling, which sports decals that look like pieces of sushi floating in the wine. The winery’s Le Cigare Volant spoofs the famed Rhône Valley village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which once passed an ordinance forbidding flying saucers (cigares volants) from landing in the vineyards. The Rhône-style California wine is delicious, and naturally a cigar-shaped vessel hovers on its label.

The clown on any list deserves Beaulieu Vineyard’s Beauzeaux. Yes, it’s pronounced “Bozo.” Its back label boasts of “in-your-face berry pie flavors.” And, my, what a big nose the wine has! All to be expected from its zesty blend of mostly Zinfandel with Charbono, Grenache, and other grapes. Or, to keep a wine lover honest, you may want to create a sinner-and-saint combo. Start with a Devil’s Lair Chardonnay from Western Australia; add a St. Innocent Oregon Pinot Noir, a St. Francis Sonoma Zinfandel, and a St. Supéry Napa Sauvignon Blanc. Having all three ought to keep that devil in line.

OLD WINES VS. NEW TRICKS
As enticing as it is to take cues from the imagery of wines when gift-giving, there are times when more straightforward choices are in order. But selecting wine for business associates, for example, still calls for a dash of ingenuity if you want the gift to stand out.

Manhattan-based attorney David Bernstein’s passion for wine is well known among his peers and clients, so he is often on the receiving end of fine bottles. But Bernstein says, “An established wine is always nice because it is impressive. But it’s not memorable. A creative, new wine is a far better gift — it shows so much more thought and helps expand my knowledge.” He adds that a crowning touch is to include a brief write-up with the wine, to point out what makes it special.

Indeed, most modern-day collectors, no matter how fervent, have a core interest but are eager to try new wines. With so many regions setting and achieving higher standards, it’s easier than ever to opt for a high-class wine that is just enough “outside the box” to both delight and surprise.

For instance, the Bordeaux collector may get a charge out of one of the new breed of “Super Chilean” wines. Casa Lapostolle’s Clos Apalta Merlot ($45) is stunning; and the rich Cabernet blends “M” from Montes Alpha ($65) and Almaviva ($75) from a joint venture of Concha y Toro and Mouton-Rothschild offer glimpses of the full potential of South America.

Another red-hot red these days is Shiraz, the Australians’ ripe, jammy, spicy rendition of the Rhône grape Syrah. Penfolds’ Grange is the most revered and Rosemount the best known, but fine wine merchants are now stocking up on boutiques that deliver both quality and cachet. Elderton, Killerby, and Grant Burge are just a few of many estates that excel at Shiraz under $40. The hunt may be harder for Hardy’s Eileen Hardy bottling, d’Arenberg’s The Dead Arm, or the cult hit Astralis, made by Clarendon Hills.

And if you want to push a bit further out on the cutting edge, tap into the recent trend of ultrapremium wines made via unorthodox blends. From Spain, for instance, Abadia Retuerta combines native Tempranillo with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. In Italy, Argiano created Solengo, an intense blend of equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sangiovese, and Syrah. And in Napa Valley, this new wave is being led by Swanson’s Alexis (Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc) and the singular Bacio Divino (Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese, Petite Sirah, Merlot).

The finest gesture of all may be to give a wine you know and love. Michael Yurch, of the New York City wine retailer Sherry-Lehmann, sees more thought being put into wine gifts than there was five or 10 years ago. Often, people select a specific wine to give to a list of people. “Essentially, they’re giving their own taste,” Yurch says. “It lends a personal touch. It gives them something in common and makes it easy to follow up with a phone call and ask, ‘Hey, how’d you like that wine?’ ”

It sure beats asking, “Hey, how’d you like that picture frame?”

W. R. Tish, former editor of Wine Enthusiast magazine, writes for a variety of print and Web outlets and leads corporate wine tastings in New York’s metro area.