Perhaps your love is a wine buff. Your best friend or close relative might be a wine buff also. If you have a wine buff in your circle—and odds are, you do—you should never run out of gift ideas for that person come holiday time, or any time, really. The wine buff’s favourite axiom might be “life is too short to drink bad wine.” Indeed, a corollary might be “life is too short not to drink good wine”

The first and most obvious wine-related gift would be just that—good wine. If you know wine, choosing a bottle for your friend or loved one should be a snap. If not, it might be necessary to do your homework. Like most hobbyists, chances are your friend or loved one will be more than a little willing to talk about their passion for wine. Encourage them. Make mental notes, especially of their likes and dislikes, and the language in which they express these likes and dislikes.

Next, if you know their favourite wine shop, visit them. Talk to the shopkeeper about your friend; let them know what you’re up to. Chances are, if they’re’ a regular customer, the shopkeeper already has a pretty good idea of their likes and dislikes. In fact, most good wine shops can recommend a bottle that your friend or loved one hasn’t tried yet that they will most likely appreciate. You’ll be able to go ‘safe’ and opt for a bottle of their favourite, or go ‘risky’ and get them a bottle of a wine that suits their tastes but which they may have yet to sample.

Wine also comes in sets. This may be a brilliant way to allow them to sample other wines from the same winery as their favourite, or a set of thematically-linked wines, such as wines from a particular region or wines made from a particular type of grape.

Few people habitually drink champagne, but just about everyone appreciates it for those special occasions. A bottle of bubbly is the ideal gift on holidays such as new years, or an anniversary, or graduation from university. It also makes an excellent gift for the host at any holiday party.

Yet another option includes subscriptions or clubs. Typically, these will work somewhat like book clubs. They may be offered through the mail or they may be offered through your local wine shop.  Either way, your friend or loved one will receive the gift of wine from you throughout the year.

If you’re finding the research frustrating or your friend or loved one’s tastes to be too rigorous to master, consider a gift certificate from a quality wine shop. This enables them to choose which wine they’d prefer and bring the fullness of their wine-related knowledge to bear. The downside, of course, is that they’ll know exactly how much you’ve spent. On the other hand, they’d know doubt fi9gure it out anyway.

Other wine-related gifts worth considering are gift baskets, including palate-cleansing cheese and crackers as well as a decent bottle of wine or two, and wine-related gadgets.