A great holiday gift guide for the wine lover in your life.

Granted, most wine obsessees already have a plethora of wine-happy gizmos.  However, these gadgets and accessories still top our list of best gifts to receive.  Maybe you know someone who's just dabbling with interest in wine.  Trust me, they will still appreciate this fun stuff.  Plus, you'll be helping to educate them about a subject so fascinating, they may never come up for air, and suddenly fall into the first category of "wine obsessee".  Unless they're in AA, don't be afraid, as the subject, history, and culture of wine is undeniably addicting.

Here are some excellent wine gifts to give this year:

1. A good bottle of wine.  OK, this one can be tricky.  If you just don't know what your giftee likes, but you know they like "wine", then consider giving them a nice bottle of Champagne.  However, if you know they love Cabs, head to a local wine shop and ask them to recommend their best Cab within your price range.  Many wine fanatics love all wine, so you have a wide selection of varietals to choose from.  The key here is still to get them something
simply amazing.
Retail - $UptoYou.00

2. Nuance Wine Finer.  I used to be crazy over my Vinturi aerator.  You'd see me carrying the little black bag around parties, and out I would pull this odd contraption.  Most people thought it was a drug apparatus, but I just wanted to decant my wine!  The thing was a bit bulky for my purse, but I loved it anyhow.  Enter Nuance.  Nuance is dual-purposed.  This skinny black gizmo gets shoved into the top of an opened wine bottle.  It acts as both a pourer to prevent drippage, a sediment filter, and its 30-something tiny holes decant your wine while pouring.  It doesn't come with a bag, but it decants even better than Vinturi. 
Retail - $34.95

3. Winerd Wine Trivia and Blind Tasting Board Game.  A fun cross between Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, this game combines wine tasting with wine knowledge.  Each player chooses a cork and moves around the board by correctly answering multiple-choice wine trivia questions.  Taste and record your impressions of three wines in the beginning of the game.  If you land on the space 'Blind Taste Test', you must retaste the wines and guess the name, year, and region.  The first person to reach the Winner's Circle WINS!  Finally, a grown-up version of college drinking games!
Retail - $26.99

4. Connoisseur's 6-Piece Wine Opener Gift Set.  The Connoisseur's Compact Wine Opener from Brookstone is the easiest I've found yet.  Hold it over the top of the bottle, lower the lever, then raise the lever to release the cork.  VOILA!  It is really, really that easy.  The Wine Opener is also sold seperately from the gift set. 
Retail - Gift Set - $59.95, Wine Opener - $39.95

5. Oz Clarke's Pocket Wine Guide 2010. This little book is a great stocking stuffer for your die hard wino.  Oz gives a great background on the usual wine regions, as well as unusual ones, such as Thailand.  There's also a chart on the inside cover assessing good and bad years in wine regions around the world.  An A-Z guide of the world's top wines and producers, wine region updates, plus a glossary in the back, make this little book something to carry at all times.
Retail - $10.17

Happy Holidays from The South Florida Punch!