Santé’s Holiday Gift Guide, Part One: For the Wine Lover

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The best wine gifts share one quality: they are things a serious drinker would love to own but would hesitate to buy for themselves. A better glass. A tool that lets them open the good bottle on a Tuesday. A reference book they will use for a decade. And, occasionally, a bottle that announces the occasion. This first part of our wine gift guide is for the wine lover; Part Two, on spirits and gourmet gifts, follows in November.

Glassware: Where Every Wine Gift Guide Should Start

Glassware is the gift with the most immediate effect. A thin rim, a generous bowl and a fine stem change how a wine smells and feels, and most people never upgrade from the glasses they bought when they first set up a kitchen.

• Zalto Denk’Art Universal. Hand-blown in Austria, so light it seems improbable, with an angled bowl that many sommeliers now treat as a reference glass. The Universal handles everything from Champagne to Barolo. Zalto’s Denk’Art range also includes Bordeaux, Burgundy and white-wine shapes for the collector. Zalto
• Richard Brendon x Jancis Robinson. Designed by Brendon with the critic Jancis Robinson on the principle that one well-made glass serves sparkling, still, sweet and fortified wine. Choose the mouth-blown Original or the machine-made, more robust Precision; the collection also includes stemless water glasses and two decanters. Richard Brendon
• Gabriel-Glas. Austrian, a single-shape philosophy, offered as the hand-blown Gold Edition and the machine-made StandArt. The StandArt is the sensible buy for everyday use; the Gold Edition is the gift. Gabriel-Glas
• Riedel Veritas. For the recipient who wants grape-specific shapes without hand-blown fragility, Riedel’s machine-made Veritas range is light, durable and dishwasher-safe. Riedel

A pair of fine glasses is a better gift than a set of six mediocre ones.

Decanters

A decanter earns its place twice: it aerates young wine and separates old wine from its sediment. Look for a wide base for young reds and a narrower form for older bottles; our guide on how to decant wine covers the technique.

• Riedel Superleggero Decanter — hand-made and, as the name says, remarkably light. Riedel
• Zalto Decanter 67 — an elegant carafe with an elongated neck and a glass stopper, sized for everyday decanting. Zalto
• Richard Brendon x Jancis Robinson Young Wine and Mature Wine Decanters — two shapes for two jobs, matched to the glasses above. Richard Brendon

The Coravin

The Coravin system pours wine through a thin needle inserted through the cork, replacing the volume with argon so the remaining wine is protected from oxygen. It allows a single glass from a fine bottle, or a comparison of two vintages side by side, without committing to either bottle. The Timeless Six+ is the model to give: it includes an aerator and screw caps that extend the system to screwcapped wines. Add a pack of spare argon capsules. Coravin

Books

Two titles belong on every serious wine shelf, and one of them has just been reissued.

• The World Atlas of Wine, 9th edition, by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, with Julia Harding as maps editor. The first new edition since 2019 adds eighteen entirely new maps and revises every existing one, with fresh attention to climate change, northern Europe’s emerging vineyards and sustainability. Hachette lists its UK publication as September 24, 2026. If your recipient owns the eighth, this is the year to replace it. Hachette
• The Oxford Companion to Wine, 5th edition, edited by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and Tara Q. Thomas. Published in 2023, it remains the definitive A-to-Z reference. Jancis Robinson

Pair either with a subscription to a serious wine publication and the gift lasts all year.

Experiences

The most useful gift for an enthusiast who has started asking why a wine tastes as it does is structured study. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust’s courses are taught worldwide by approved providers, in classrooms and online, and the WSET Level 2 Award in Wines is the natural starting point for a keen amateur: grape varieties, regions, and a systematic approach to tasting, ending in an exam. Gift vouchers or course fees through a local provider make a thoughtful present. More adventurous recipients may prefer a producer visit or a vertical tasting at a local wine school; book something specific rather than giving a generic voucher. WSET

A Few Showpiece Bottles

Finally, the bottles that make the gift feel like an occasion. Each is an established reference point, and each will be opened with ceremony.

• Krug Grande Cuvée — a multi-vintage Champagne assembled from well over a hundred wines across many years; rich, nutty, layered. Shop it at Wine.com
• Ridge Monte Bello — Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet that has proved for decades that California can age as long as Bordeaux. Shop it at Wine.com
• Château d’Yquem — Sauternes’ first growth; a half-bottle is a gracious and more accessible gift. Shop it at Wine.com
• Graham’s Vintage Port — a bottle from the recipient’s birth year, or a child’s, for laying down. Our guide to stocking your wine cellar for winter suggests what might keep it company. Shop it at Wine.com
• Hine Antique XO Cognac — a Grande and Petite Champagne blend for the wine lover who finishes dinner with brandy, and a preview of Part Two. Shop it at Wine.com

How to Give It

Wrap the bottle with the glass that suits it. Write a line on the card about why you chose it—the vintage, the producer, the region you once visited together. The object matters; the reason matters more. Part Two of Santé’s wine gift guide, devoted to spirits and gourmet gifts, arrives in November.