Looking for the perfect present? From budget serviceware to high-end accessories, explore these top gift ideas for wine lovers to find something they’ll actually use!

Do you hear the bells jingling? Is that Mariah Carey on the radio? Is there a big, probably fake, decorated tree in the middle of your local mall? Well, it must be Christmas season. And if you’re like me, you might be struggling to find gifts for your friends and family.

Well, if one of them is a wine lover, this article can give you the perfect gift ideas for them. And if you want, take this as a wish list in case you want to gift me something. Which reminds me: I usually don’t mention it, but you can buy me a coffee if you like these articles. Let’s be honest, though, your generosity will contribute to my next wine, not coffee.

Let’s get going with my recommended gift ideas for wine lovers!

Isn’t Wine a Good Gift for Wine Lovers?

Yes, but I typically advise against gifting wines to your wine-loving friends. Unless you know which ones they like or unless you’re willing to spend a pretty penny on a gift, you might end up giving them something they appreciate as a thoughtful present but probably will have a hard time uncorking. A gift card for a good, local wine store might be a better alternative.

I mean, wine can be a good gift for wine lovers, provided you know what their favorite wine is (if they even have one), then that’s a safe bet. Also, nobody is going to complain if the gifted bottle is a high-end Burgundy or expensive Super Tuscan.

However, in my experience, the wine gift tends to come after a conversation with the clerk at a wine store, and if you only tell them, “My friend likes wine”, they’re likely to give you a vanilla recommendation just to be on the safe side. Here in Chile, for instance, they might recommend a Carménère because it’s popular and most people will be happy to get one, but I would prefer an old-vine Carignan from Maule or a Sémillon from Itata, if you’re taking notes.

If your friend or family member uncorks often and has room to store bottles, a great option is to gift them a subscription to a wine club; that way they will always have a bottle available. Some of these wine clubs are very good at adapting to your (or in this case your giftee’s) preferences so the wine delivered is often of the style you (or in this case your giftee) want to drink.

But if you don’t know what bottle to buy, I have several alternative gift ideas for wine lovers below:

Wine-Related Gifts to Serve Wine

This category is broad, and you can find gifts for wine lovers at all price points, from your office’s Secret Santa to that special person in your life that you’ll be willing to spoil with an expensive present.

Inexpensive Serviceware Gift Ideas for Wine Lovers

I have a few recommendations for you, each at a different price. The first are charms for wine glasses, which are not only decorative, but are also useful to quickly spot your glass in situations where you must set it on a common table and move around to do things elsewhere, like parties or barbecues. Charms are typically cheap and you can buy packs of around twenty of them for not too much. However, there are also hand-crafted or custom-made alternatives that can get more expensive.

Another good idea under this category of service-related gifts for wine lovers is a wine pourer. The least expensive alternative is the wine disk, which is thin and flexible so the round shape can be rolled into a spout. Wineries oftentimes gift them—with their brands printed on, of course—to restaurants and sell them at their stores. They are a cheap gift to leave inside someone’s stocking and are still effective at preventing drops of wine from staining your tablecloth or attire.

Those are not the only wine pourers you can get. In case you’re looking for something that doesn’t look that cheap but remains equally serviceable, you can purchase a solid wine pourer, sometimes in the shape of an animal. Or you can purchase an aerator.

Gifts for Wine Lovers Looking to Add Oxygen to Their Wines

When wines are young and bold, it helps to introduce oxygen into them to soften tannins and let the wine change aromatically as it oxidizes. Let’s look at a couple of gift ideas for wine lovers that are available to help us with that.

As mentioned in the section above, one of them is a wine pourer designed to aerate your wine in the process of pouring. It does so by taking advantage of the Bernoulli effect. Explained simply, when pouring wine through the pipe of this aerator, the liquid is forced to squeeze through a skinny tunnel, and therefore its flow speeds up, causing the internal pressure of the liquid to drop. This pourer has tiny holes on the sides of the pipe, so that when the pressure inside drops below normal air pressure, air outside gets sucked into the tunnel—into the stream of wine. That, of course, aerates it. It’s just a cool gift idea for wine lovers.

Another alternative to expose the wine to oxygen is by pouring it into a decanter. Certainly, the decanter has uses other than aerating; in fact, decanting a wine has less to do with oxygen and more to do with residue. For that reason, they are a more versatile gift for wine lovers. Decanters also come in different shapes and price points, so you can pick the one that fits your giftee’s personality and your budget best.

What About Wine Glasses?

Other than wine itself, glasses might seem like the obvious gift for wine lovers. But like with wine, picking the right glass can be difficult and expensive. The first thing to consider is that you can’t buy your friend or family member worse wine glasses than the ones they already have. So, first make sure you at least match the quality.

That said, if you’re willing to spend some money, wine glasses are a good gift idea for wine lovers. Aside from possible storage space issues, wine glasses are always welcome. There are different shapes of glasses, each crafted to fit a specific style of wine. So, you can gift your Merlot lover a glass made for Bordeaux blends. However, a set of high-quality wine glasses can be pricey.

Alternatively, microfiber polishing cloths can also be good wine-related gifts if you think your friend or family member is already set with wine glasses, or if you’re looking for budget gift ideas for wine lovers.

The Humble (And Sometimes Pompous) Corkscrew

I’m a sucker for corkscrews, though only for the three-stepper that you typically see servers using. You know the kind: they also call it “waiter’s friend” or “the double-hinged corkscrew,” and they make great stocking-stuffers. However, there are other types of corkscrews that are worth considering as gifts for wine lovers.

There’s the classic butterfly corkscrew, which you can probably find inside a cluttered drawer in your kitchen. Love the shape; dislike the usability. Then there’s the bunny (or vertical) corkscrew, which works with a lever. It’s bulkier, but some models are attractive. They are a showpiece, and that makes them a worthy gift for wine lovers. You can also get battery-operated corkscrews that work with the push of a button, and pump corkscrews that let air do the heavy lifting. Those, unlike the three-step corkscrew described above, typically come without a small knife to cut the foil, so you might want to buy a foil cutter separately.

Lastly, there’s the Ah-So, which is not a corkscrew at all. It consists of two parallel prongs of different lengths, and it works by sliding the prongs along both sides of the cork and then twisting and rocking the cork out. They are best for old bottles where the cork might be damaged. Then of course, there’s the Durand, which is an Ah-So, but with a separate corkscrew that you can use to secure the cork firmly and remove it in one piece.

Most of those are gifts for wine lovers that have upscale alternatives or can be personalized to make them unique, thoughtful presents.

A Few Additional Gift Ideas for Wine Lovers

I had a hard time categorizing these, so I’m just adding them in this short section:

• Wine buckets with or without stands. The buckets themselves can be made of stainless steel, plastic, glass, or other materials, and they can fit anywhere from just one bottle to over a six-pack. Also, some of the stands catch the eye more than others. My favorite is not a stand per se, but a bucket holder that attaches to the side of the table, and you can find it as a table-mounted, table-clipped, or hanging bucket holder.
• A set of bottle stoppers can make any uncorked wine look elegant.
• Tabletop bottle holders, used to display a particular bottle before opening it.
• If your giftee already owns one, decanter cleaning balls are not a bad gift for wine lovers.
• Finally, think about wine preserving options, like a pump vacuum or a Coravin, which inserts argon gas to a bottle through the cork, displacing the wine that comes out through a needle, meaning we don’t need to uncork the bottle to enjoy a glass.

Education Is the Best Gift You Can Give

You can contribute towards somebody’s wine education through some of these gift ideas for wine lovers.

Think about wine books, whether general wine knowledge or content specific. For instance, you can gift a wine encyclopedia-type book for general reference or one about a particular variety or wine region. You can also think about wine maps, which can be general, like one for all of Chile, or centered on a smaller region, like a map of the Maipo Valley. Another option is a subscription to wine magazines for those always happy to read a good wine story. You can also purchase wine tasting tickets or—if your friend or family member already lives in or near a wine region—a winery visit.

Other wine-related gifts fitting for this section include a wine journal for that friend that loves to go to wine tastings or a set of blind-tasting wine bags for that family member who loves to organize them. You can also gift a wine aromas kit to help them learn how to recognize and identify those found in wines, or at least a wine aromas wheel.

If you have a lot of money and you feel like splurging, you can also purchase a wine trip for your spouse or a wine course, like the WSET, for your children. Of course, those are life-changing presents, but they are also expensive, so gift responsibly.

The Last Drop

I decided to cut this “gift ideas for wine lovers” article a little short because I felt like it was already running too long. However, there are other presents I could’ve added to the list, including wine carrying devices like totes or suitcases, or wine storage options, like wine racks or wine coolers.

But maybe I’ll revisit this list next year with more ideas. I hope you found this article useful. Have you already chosen a gift for your wine-loving friend?

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Cover Image: Check out this gift guide for wine lovers! Photo by Vlad Murashko.