Do you give someone a better version of what they already like to drink? Or do you give them something entirely new?
Let's begin with sherry. Three years of drinking bad sherry at university has put off thousands from ever drinking it again. This is a mistake. There are impressive sherries out there, and because the drink is unfashionable, their cost is rather below their value. As an aperitif, sherry is almost unrivalled (the challenger is dry or Sercial madeira, especially that produced by Henriques & Henriques for £11.99, which Waitrose stock). Or you could wrap up a bottle of Argueso Manzanilla San Leon. Manzanilla is a dry fino sherry, produced only in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and is crisp, aromatic and slightly salty. It is only in this cool but humid area by the sea that the layer of yeast bodies, called flor, which is vital to the flavour of any fino sherry, can thrive all year round. The Argueso San Leon is a pasada (aged) manzanilla, and was bottled when it was about seven years old. It can be found at Soho Wine Supply on Percy Street in central London for £7.
For a heavier sherry, consider an oloroso. There are two types of sherry: fino and oloroso. If the flor refuses to thrive, or is deliberately killed off, it becomes an oloroso. The sherry slowly evaporates in cask, becoming more alcoholic, and the flavour becomes richer and more concentrated. Oloroso is naturally dry; it is only if it is sweetened with the fermented juice of the pedro ximénez grape that it becomes an oloroso dulce. (Cheap cream sherries are inferior olorosos, not least because they have been sweetened by any of several other methods.) Dry olorosos of high quality can be extraordinary - deep, rich and concentrated without being sweet. They are wonderful with cheese, and can even stand up to salad with vinaigrette dressing - try to think of another wine which can survive such a test. One which does is Valdespino's Don Gonzalo dry oloroso. But to fill the Bristol Cream slot, the choice must be a deep and rich oloroso dulce. A good choice would be Royal Corregidor old oloroso. Served with a good stilton, the combination is sublime. However, to make the gift truly memorable, add some Spanish manchego cheese plus some quince paste. Both wines can be found at the Lea & Sandeman shops, and each costs about £11.
The other classic gift is port. Port has an image problem, but it is not necessary to be an ageing male academic or a judge unused to washing his own wine glass in order to appreciate it. For vintage port, the juice is fermented, matured in cask for two years, and then bottled without being filtered. The wine then matures in the bottle. Vintage port comes from a single harvest of exceptional quality, while late bottled vintage (LBV) although still of a single vintage, is of a slightly lesser quality. LBV is matured in cask for four to six years, filtered, and bottled ready to drink. These are both widely available, the LBV for about £10. But to demonstrate knowledge beyond the ordinary, choose an old tawny port, usually the product of several harvests, tasting of nuts, figs, bitter marmalade and toffee. It is produced in reverse order from vintage port; held in cask for many years until it turns a tawny colour, it is then bottled ready to drink. Cheaper tawny, a blend of white and ruby port, should be ignored. Ten-year-old Otima, made by Warre, can be found at Waitrose for £10, while Dow and Graham each sell the more complex 20-year-old tawny for about £25. But try to find a colheita, which is a single harvest tawny and a truly arresting wine.
For table wines, if you want a white, why not explore those of Alsace or Germany? For too many, German wine is the sweet stuff that you find in litre bottles on the bottom shelves of supermarkets, while Alsatian wine is simply unknown. A pity - as with sherry, these wines are undervalued. The same grapes appear on both sides of the Rhine, but Alsatian wine, coming from a hotter region, is generally richer and more alcoholic than German. For sheer sensual pleasure, take an Alsatian gewurztraminer, whose rich scent is redolent of rose petals and lychees; it is a wonderful aperitif. Hugel does a nice one, available from Oddbins for £10, but for a truly memorable wine, buy one produced by Zind Humbrecht from Waitrose for £17. If your host happens to be a serious wine drinker, take an old German riesling from the Mosel. The combination of honey and petrol with a streak of acid is unforgettable. Both 1989 and 1990 are classic years; buy anything by Dr Loosen, JJ Prüm Fritz Haag.
Unbelievably, there are people who will only drink red wine; it could be taste, but it could also be misplaced snobbery. If you must take a cabernet sauvignon, take a Château Musar from the Bekaa Valley in the Lebanon: even during the civil war, with bullets flying, the grapes were grown and the wine made. It is £12.49 from Waitrose.
And finally, one legendary sweet wine which few in Britain will have tasted is Vin de Constance from Klein Constantia in South Africa. It will cost £25 from www.swig.co.uk and you will trump everybody. Merry Christmas.
