Giving gifts is not always a pleasure

In search of the right wine gift (Photo: P. Züllig)

Indeed, wine gifts are a tricky thing, even if you think you know the recipient well. What does he/she really like? What gives real pleasure and what comes to the recipient only as a "chaperone gift"? The wine merchant says, "A good bottle always gives pleasure!" But what is "a good bottle, a good wine"? What are the criteria? The Parker (or other) scores, the price, or even the taste of the gift giver? It is as difficult to make a wine lover and connoisseur happy with wine as it is to make the so-called (usually self-declared) layman, who pretends to be naive and ignorant. As ignorant as he (or she) may pretend to be, he (or she) is not, because one's own sensory abilities, one's own taste, one's own judgment are always there, even if they are not talked about.

So the reservations about wine-gifting are not completely out of the air. Which is true, however, not just for wine, rather for any ritual gift-giving. The exchange battle on December 27th, the annoyed sellers provide the best proof.
But wines cannot be exchanged. They only reveal their intrinsic value (i.e. the meaning of the gift) when they are opened and drunk. But then it is too late, there is no going back. The purpose (to give pleasure) is fulfilled or not. Sometimes (not seldom at all!) it turns into the opposite: Phew... So much money, so many Parker points, so much wine understanding often dissolve into disappointment. No matter how great the goodwill and the effort of the gift-giver may have been.

Wine with hidden messages - all too often they are misunderstood (Photo: P. Züllig)

Giving wine as a gift to wine connoisseurs also has its pitfalls. As soon as the wrapping paper is removed, rankings emerge in the mind of the recipient: Price, quality, points, rarity... - in fact, all the knowledge that makes the wine connoisseur a connoisseur. But this knowledge is always linked with experiences, judgments, prejudices and last but not least with skepticism. My experience: Nothing is as difficult as to convince a wine lover of wines (or even to make him happy with them) that he does not (yet) know. Two things make the status as a connoisseur, that he knows everything good long ago and (at best) is willing to rediscover something good himself (but not to be taught by a gift).

The situation becomes even more difficult with corporate gifts. There one easily gets from niceness into the suspicion of "bribery" or even into the focus of the tax authorities. A boss who gives his employees a few bottles of wine (for their good work) must also declare the value of the "gift", because above a certain (already small) amount the supposed benefit is taxable (for the recipient). A gift with value indication, actually unthinkable! What happens if the client of a company gives one or more bottles to the direct participants (with whom he has to do it almost daily) as a thank you for the successful cooperation? There possibly the employee is brought in large trouble. Many a boss smells bribery behind it and even threatens (as documented examples show) with dismissal.

"Vin de merde" (merde = shit)% a funny% ironically meant wine name - probably not a suitable wine gift (Photo: P. Züllig)

So giving wine as a gift is not entirely "harmless", be it in the private sphere or in business. There lurks in every bottle not only a good, very often also a bad spirit. Even if it is mostly only the spirit of judgements and prejudices. The well-meaning, unsuspecting gift-giver is caught unawares in the maelstrom of hidden messages. A young wine - for example - can be a gift for later: store it, put it away, wait (possibly years). Perhaps by the time it is enjoyed, the gift-giver has long since been forgotten. An old wine, on the other hand, often arouses suspicion: cellar emptying, disposal? A well-known wine - a common, recognized name (thought of as a "safe" value) - perhaps (often unjustly) shows a lack of imagination. A little-known wine, on the other hand, has to pass the taste test (and can so easily fail it).

However you do it, tact is required. A wine can be chosen without any ulterior motives and still leave the recipient with the impression of a hidden message. For example: The wine served at the dinner wasn't good enough? Or: It might be time to drink more Australian, Californian, Bordeaux.... Or: Your favorite rosé isn't a serious wine after all, drink that red instead. Or..

There is hardly anything that is so subject to general and sweeping criticism as wine. Professional tasters set the standards, worldwide, with points, stars or glasses. Vintages and wineries are classified as good or bad. Wines are not only described, but also assessed. Even the layman gets something of it, at least so much that he is tempted to at least find out the rating and the price. At the latest, many a well-intentioned gift becomes a Danar gift (according to the Duden: "suspicious gift that proves to be sinister and damaging for the recipient").

I experienced probably the worst example a year ago in a circle of self-proclaimed wine enthusiasts. Under the motto "gifts preserve friendship", people in the blogger scene sent each other - in a chain system, as it were - a wine to be judged by the recipient. This meant a lot of effort: choosing, buying, packing, sending... and then being exposed to criticism. Of course, each and every one was anxious to "give away" only the best, the most interesting and the most personal. At least for one of the participants, this went thoroughly wrong. "His" or "her" wine was picked apart and "torn apart" by the recipients, as if it was about showing off one's own wine competence; this in public, as if someone had sent plague and cholera instead of wine. At the latest since this episode, I know: gifts do not always bring joy (and do not preserve every friendship).

Cordially
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