Put. The paper bag. Down.

Taking a bottle of vino to a dinner party? I don’t care if you’re bringing a bottle of Opus One, you’ll look like a schlub if you show up with a wrinkled paper bag in your hand. Way to look like you just picked up a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, there, champ.  

Step it up and pick up one of these Picnic Time Havana Wine Carrying Cases. The canvas-coated hard shell protects your precious cargo, and the leather strap gives it that extra touch of class. Just make sure it matches the shoes, ok?

Heck, that bottle of Chuck might just pass. 

(via ProductDose) 

Yes, kittens, it’s time for the neverending flow of Whatever of the Year stories. Tedious, we know, but this one caught our eye. Saving the World, One Drink at a Time reports on Wine Buyer’s Wine of the Year, a sultry Spanish sipper somewhat cumbersomely called Bodegas El Nido Clio Jumilla 2003. Say that five times fast. Oh, you can? Well, have a glass of the Clio and then try it. There.

Spanish wines have been super hot this year, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that one should rise to such an auspicious position. Clocking in at 93 points on Robert Parker’s ratings, Clio is, according to StWODaaT, “a great wine for  those special parties where you want to impress but without breaking the bank.” At $34, it’s surely less of an investment than, say, some of the grand Bordeaux. But we can’t help but wonder, what do you have in a wine of the year for under twenty bucks?

What would the holidays be without a little holiday cheer? It would seem that ThisNexters are a cheerful bunch indeed. We’ve picked up some highlights from a selection of gift guides designed for the tasteful tippler.

When in doubt, wine makes a great gift. Even if you don’t know the tastes and proclivities of your giftee, there’s bound to be a bottle that will be graciously received. Culinary Detective Chris Cognac recommends Chateau Ste Michelle Reserve Chardonnay in his gift guide In the Kitchen with the Common Man. “Delicious and affordable,” says he. A winning combination indeed.

A bottle of bubbly is an unfailingly classy gift, but you don’t have to break the bank to impress. I’m a big fan of Gruet Brut , a sparkling wine from the otherwise unheard of wine region of New Mexico. You’ll wow your friends with the relative obscurity, and the flavor utterly belies its petite price tag. For more options on inexpensive imbibables, check out my list of Great Cheap Wines.

...continued: Lush-ious gift guides

Today is the third Thursday of November, an auspicious day in French wine. On this day every year, beaujolais nouveau makes its garish, red splash in wine shops and French restaurants across the globe.

Wine afficionados tend to turn their noses up at this stuff, and not without reason. It’s raw, sweet, ultra-fruity and so young it’s barely wine. Whereas most red wines evoke aromas of complex notes like earth, dark fruits or tobacco, beaujolais nouveau more often gets compared to bananas or bubble gum. Got a white zinfandel lover in your family? Beaujolais nouveau is a red they can appreciate. It’s even best served lightly chilled. Best of all, it’s cheap. And we love the cheap wines.

Coincidentally (and conveniently), beaujolais nouveau is often considered a great Thanksgiving wine. The sweetness is a perfect foil to notoriously hard-to-pair turkey, the tartness of cranberry sauce and the general saltiness of stuffing and gravy. So stock up on your Turkey day wine today! Just be sure to drink it up right away — this stuff is not meant to sit around for long (as in by Christmas). If you see a bottle with a vintage other than 2006, put. The bottle. Down.

If you’ve had your fill of the stuff over the years, Wine Sediments reminds us that beaujolais nouveau is but one of several “new wines” that get released on this day. So if you’re looking for something a little different, keep your eyes peeled for Gaillac nouveau or Touraine premeur. And if you’re simply over the whole vin nouveau thing altogether, Restaurant Widow’s husband proffers up a few options of the real deal — full-on beaujolais bottles that are top-notch, many of which will only set you back an extra buck or two.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Don’t knock the box wines until you’ve tried the best of the bunch. The aptly-named Box Wines showcases the very sexily-packaged Black Box Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon. Yes, we just called a box wine sexy. More importantly, however, is that it is actually drinkable:

“Don’t expect a lot of oak or spice, but if you like a fruit-forward wine that manages to avoid being overly simple, the Black Box cabernet is a good choice. Its strong fruit character will appeal to your guests who aren’t world-class wine tasters, but even your picky friends will enjoy the structured complexity this cab offers.”

All this for $22 for three litres. Sounds like party wine to us! 

Being a hostess with the mostess means definitely not spilling what you’re serving - and always having just the right amount of seating available.

I certainly will use this tray to pass the canapés, but Daily Olive points us to a lovely no-tip wine serving tray which could lead to a very fabulous party as I think I’ll have to have one in every scrumptious color. 

For multi-functional and easy to store seating that doesn’t look like it was stolen from your office conference room or a distant Moroccon boudoir the Olive also point us to these fabulously designed Falter Folding Stools.

Hmmm…anyone free next Saturday? 

Some 20 years before our founding fathers put their collective foot down and gave birth to a great nation, another great institution, Riedel, was born in Austria. Over the past 250 years, Riedel has consistently stood at the apex of quality for stemware, and in 1961 furthered the art of wine appreciation by developing a series of wine glasses each tailored to the tasting of an individual type of wine. Fine Wine Press takes you — via podcast — to the commemorative celebrations in Kufstein, Austria. Listen in as new media transports you to the old world.

What better way to end that lovely holiday in the Wine Country than to bring home a couple of choice bottles from your favorite chateaux? A more apt question is: What worse way than to have that lovingly sampled, selected and purchased wine wrested from your very hands at the airport? Yes, the newest change to security regulations in the airport prohibits carrying on nearly all liquids — and that includes wine. But all is not lost. Dave at Sideways Wine Club illustrates how to get those bottles of bliss back to your abode where you can share them with your loved ones over a welcome-home dinner. On the other hand, you could just chug the stuff at the security check-in, but that’s just not dainty.

Winehiker Witiculture knows blisters - or at least how to prevent them. Here, the official blog for CaliforniaWineHikes.com explains the most important rule of blister prevention:

“If something is chafing in your shoe, stop and remove your shoe, and find the pebble, seed, dirt clod, or wrinkle in your sock. And, if you know you’ve got a vulnerable trouble spot (or a blister already formed, like my fellow hiker), put a piece of moleskin on it before you begin hiking. You don’t have to carry a serious humongosity like my Backpacker’s First Aid Kit, but you should consider always packing a Swiss Army knife that includes a pair of scissors, and a patch or two of Dr. Scholl’s.”

Wine verbiage is notoriously convoluted, so why not taste it with your tongue in your cheek? We just love these disposable paper coasters emblazoned with convincingly snooty (yet nonsensical) wine jabber. Kudos to Wine Sediments for keeping it real and reminding everyone that, above all else, wine is simply meant to be enjoyed. Our sediments exactly.

It was only a matter of time. With wine producers eschewing cork for synthetic or — gasp — screw-tops, we’re surprised that the concept of crown seals on bottles of bubbly. Of course, it’s the usual reasons — reduced risk of corking, cost benefits, blah blah blah. We’re sure we’ll see an improvement in quality of the product, but somehow pulling out a church key drains the romance from the occasion of popping open some champers on a romantic occasion. Fermentation tips us off to this latest trend in tipplers.

Pairing wine can be tricky. For example, what wine should one drink red or white when listening to Coldplay? Or to celebrate a promotion? Wine site redteeth purports to connect you to the perfect wine for practically any occasion. With ratings ranging from “One-Night Stand” to “The Reddest” (“Transcendent” falls in between, interestingly), we’re relieved to have such a handy and irreverent reference at our fingertips.

Wine at parties is nothing new, but wine as party is another thing altogether. ChefsLine shows us the way with this nifty (and oh, so style-conscious) Wine Party Presentation from Smartsco. Cover your bottles with the colorful labels, then pour and follow the six S’s of wine tasting: See, Sniff-and-swirl, Sip, Spit, Side-by-side and Scribble. (Wait, wasn’t that eight S’s?) We think this sounds like a great way to demystify wine while enjoying the company of good friends.

Oenophiles love perhaps only one things as much as wine: information about wine. So it stands to reason that, sooner or later, someone would step up and start a Wikipedia-inspired site to capture it. EncycloWine endeavors to be the all-inclusive online encyclopedia for wine enthusiasts everywhere, and with over 200 articles, it’s off to a good start. If you’re just starting out appreciating wine, you’ll find this an invaluable resource. If you’re an old pro, consider becoming an editor to build it up even more. This is just the sort of site we love — bringing people together over shared interests, and making their mutual lives better.

What to pair with your chicken tikka masala or dum aloo vindaloo? Why, Indian wine, of course. Perhaps India doesn’t leap to mind as a major wine-producing nation, yet as Alder at Vinography notes, it is a large country with extremely varied topography, so it was only a matter of time before viticulture reached the subcontinent just as it has in nearly every other corner of the globe. He steers us to Sula Chenin Blanc, made in the Nashik region of central India. Crisp and fruity, it works well with spicy and complex flavors, perfect to pair with its native cuisine.

We know sometimes you need to look far and wide to find the perfect match. Vinography gave us binoculars. 

We’re not sure why, but we are just fascinated with this style-conscious Dogon stemware, pitcher and decanter. As Wine Life Today points out, true wine afficionados will likely scoff at the design as being form over function, as the shape of a glass can dramatically change the experience of tasting a wine. But maybe, just maybe, there are wines whose flavors can be best experienced as a flat sheet of fluid flooding over the palate? There’s only one way to find out.