Gift · guide
What wine to give: by budget, by age, by occasion
A bottle is an easy gift to get wrong: too expensive and it embarrasses, too young and it gets drunk on a Tuesday, badly chosen and it ends up in the cooking. This guide starts from what you have: a budget, a date that matters, a person. It also says when a bottle is the wrong gift.
By budget
Prices incl. VAT, 75 cl bottle, Bordeaux, September 2026. At each level, what really exists; no château is ever named here, always in the quote. Not sure of the level? The four-question tool suggests a lead for your case.
A cru bourgeois, a Saint-Émilion satellite
The thank-you gift, the bottle for dinner. A 2018 or 2019 Médoc, a Montagne or Lussac-Saint-Émilion. Good, ready, no speech needed.
A classified growth's second wine, a Pessac-Léognan
The gift with a name behind it. For a colleague who is leaving, a host who looked after you well, a difficult father-in-law.
A classified growth in a ready vintage, or a magnum
A Saint-Julien, a Margaux, a Saint-Émilion grand cru classé from 2015 or 2016. A magnum of a cru bourgeois has the same effect on a table.
A year, a case, a name
The birth-year vintage, a wooden case of six, a great growth from a great year. The gift that is kept and talked about again.
By date
The best wine gift carries a year that means something to the person. The birth year first: the birth-year vintage page says, from 1945 to 2010, which years are still drinking and what to give when the year was poor. Then the wedding year, for a silver or golden anniversary: the reasoning is the same, and the wine is often younger and so safer. For a fiftieth birthday, the wine for a 50th birthday page covers 1976 in detail. And for a birth, the reverse: a bottle from this year, to open in eighteen years; the birth wine to keep 18 years page says which ones will last.
By person
The bottle from their wedding year, or birth year. It is not the price that touches them, it is the date. An average vintage in a good year of their life is worth more than an unrelated great growth.
The collection comes to €60–120: a ready classified growth, or a magnum, with a card signed by everyone. Avoid wine for laying down: they are retiring and will want to open it on Sunday.
€15–25, a ready-to-drink wine, and above all no expectation that they open it tonight. A dry white Pessac-Léognan surprises more than one more red.
Up to €73 incl. VAT per year per person, the VAT can be recovered; above that, it can't. It is a business gift: a classified growth's second wine, a gift box, a restrained label. The end-of-year client gifts page does the sums per gift and in total.
Their birth-year bottle, 2006 or 2008, from a good appellation. It will be their first real wine. Choose a ready year rather than a great year that is still closed.
Not a big name, they already have it: an older vintage from a lesser-known growth, a fifteen-year-old Sauternes, a magnum of a year they don't have. The quote can dig that out of the stock.
When a bottle is the wrong gift
- When the person doesn't drink, or no longer does. It seems obvious; it happens every Christmas.
- When they have a cellar. One more bottle among two thousand is not a gift. A year they are missing is.
- When the budget is €8. An €8 Bordeaux is a good table wine and a poor gift. Give something else, or club together with someone.
- When it's a second wine given to someone who reads labels. They will see what it is. Take the first wine of a lesser-known growth at the same price.
- When it has to be sent abroad. Duties, breakage, delays: outside nearby Europe, it is a gift that arrives broken or not at all.
Ordering a gift
One bottle or a case, with or without a gift box, delivered to you or to the person, with a card. The quote goes out within 48 working hours with named wines within the budget given. Tell us the date that matters and the budget; the rest is our job.
What wine to give someone who knows nothing about wine?
A ready-to-drink, supple wine from an appellation whose name reassures: Saint-Émilion, Margaux, Pessac-Léognan. Avoid young great years, hard when opened, and fragile old vintages. A classified growth's second wine from 2018 or 2019 is the safest gift between €25 and €40.
Should you give a gift box or a bare bottle?
A wooden or cardboard gift box adds €5–15 and makes the gift when the bottle travels or passes from hand to hand. For a bottle brought to dinner, wrapping paper is enough. For a case of six, the original wooden case, where there is one, beats any packaging.
How far ahead should you order a wine gift?
One week normally, three weeks before Christmas. Older vintages sometimes need a stock check: allow 48 hours more for the quote. A personalised gift box or a label on request takes two to three weeks.
Can it be delivered straight to the person?
Yes, in mainland France, with a card in the name of your choice and no price on the parcel. Warn the person about the delivery: a case of wine left outside a door in August is no longer a gift.