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Video Transcript: Wine Gifts - What And Where to Buy Online

Written By: ClassicWines.com Team on Thursday, November 20, 2008

Brian Freedman: Welcome to Classic Wines TV brought to you by Classicwines.com, I am your host Brian Freedman.

Now, on the show we often spend a lot of time talking about individual bottles, about pairing wines with food, interesting stuff, I would like to believe, but the truth is there is more to the wine world than that. Today I would like to focus a little bit on the idea of wine gifts that you can buy online, wine gift baskets.

Now, we are talking specifically here, not about the sort of run-of-the-mill, Two Buck Chuck; I didn't say that, but Two Buck Chuck style ones where you get these possibly famous named wines that really don't deliver all that much in the juice department. Today we are going to be talking about wine gift baskets and gift packages that are all about the wine. These are the kind of things that are perfect for wine lovers, for people who really take their wine seriously, and people who want to learn more to eventually take their wine more seriously.

Now, this is really a great time to talk about it since the holiday season is coming up. So we are going to focus today on one specific company. Wine Gifts Online actually sent us this great selection of a recent gift basket that they had for sell.

Now, for most of these companies that do high-end gift baskets, you are not always going to get necessarily the same wines that are listed on the website. If, for example, a great wine gets a fantastic rating form Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, Stephen Tanzer, then all of a sudden there is likely going to be a run on that wine, they will have to change it up a little bit. That's the downside.

The upside here is that if you are dealing with a good, honest company, they will replace it with something as good or even better.

So stick with the companies that have that great reputation and that focus on the wine. Again, there are some wonderful gift baskets out there. They look adorable with your little white Zinfandel, nestled with your little tub of Boursan cheese. They are cute, they are great, but the truth is they are not necessarily the best thing for wine drinkers.

So in a gift pack like this - and this one actually - these are only four of six that came in one of the recent ones. We have a wonderful selection here. Some California examples. We had the Seghesio Rockpile Zinfandel, really well-known among wine people. We had the Hess Allomi Vineyard Cab right here, and then we have two interesting ones, and for those of you who watch Classic Wines TV, this is something - I almost forgot there - this is how excited I get about Rhône Valley Reds. We have a great selection here from the Rhône Valley, and this Rhône Valley wines and these are my Desert Island wines.

We have from the more basic Cote du Rhone from Paul Autard 2006, great everyday wine, wonderful with barbecue, steak, anything you can think of, really versatile wine, all the way up to a 2004 Domaine Lafond Châteauneuf-Du-Pape. For those of you who are Châteauneuf-Du-Pape fans, not only is it a lot of fun to say, its a heck of a lot of fun to drink.

So why don't we actually give here the 2006 Domaine Paul Autard, Cote du Rhone; I almost said Châteauneuf-Du-Pape, why don't we give this Cote du Rhone a try here.

Côte du Rhône often offers some of the best value to quality ratio out there. This bottle here, $15. Honestly, when you look at it in the context of these other wines that Wine Gifts Online is offering, you are paying significantly less for it.

Classic, classic red berry fruit, little bit of that dried Mediterranean herbs on the nose here, very, very earth driven, but still bright fruit, very fresh, young, enjoyable wine on the nose.

Paul Autard, classic wine producer, my mouth is watering from all this bright berry fruit. It's juicy, but it still has the tannins to stick around for a long time. This is the kind of thing that you are going to want to crack open with a great meal, just like any of these wines are.

So from all of us here at Classic Wines TV, I am your host Brian Freedman. We would like to thank Wine Gifts Online for providing the wines today, and for the rest of you out there as the holiday season approaches, look for the high-end wine gift companies. Friends, family, your bosses, will appreciate that you did so. Cheers!

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