We know you put a lot of thought into choosing the best gift for friends and family. To help make your holiday shopping season easy, we've created this Holiday Gift Collection.  The Collection is curated by our staff and offers their go-to gift recommendations and the philosophy behind their choices. We hope you have fun finding the perfect gift for all those wine and spirit lovers on your list!

Champagne, in my opinion, represents the pinnacle of winemaking. If all wine were to disappear tomorrow and somehow I’m tasked with choosing a carveout for a single type to remain, it would be Champagne. And my selections this year include some knockouts. We have also managed to secure a tiny bit more of the Clicquot Clos Colin gift boxes. These two bottle sets include a bottle of La Grande Dame rosé as well as a bottle of still Clos Colin Pinot noir. You read that right, Champagne without bubbles. Extraordinarily rare! Now onto my additions to Champagne this year, Méthode traditionnelle.

Prosecco began trending in the Hamptons in a time that predates social media. There were splits with straws and half bottles of Zardetto on almost every table in every busy restaurant. And all trends pass, it’s their nature. The Prosecco trend had staying power. It didn’t pass. It hasn’t passed to this day. It graduated from a trend to a staple because after the superficiality wore off, reliable and affordable remained. It was never about them being particularly good. And when we find 50-ish dollars burning a hole in our pocket, we’ll splurge on the upgrade to real Champagne. Champagne has astonishing depth compared to most sparkling wine because the production method is measured in years, not days. This difference is, understandably, reflected in the pricing.

I want to see a new trend start and I want to see it graduate just as Prosecco has. Because Prosecco is not the affordable alternative to Champagne. Sparkling wines that are produced using the traditional Champagne method, are. Cremant is a type of sparkling wine made in several familiar regions of France like Alsace and Burgundy. It’s made in the same method as Champagne, using many of the same grapes, and takes almost as long to produce. Accordingly, they taste and behave like Champagne. And they retail for much less. Not so much less that they reach parity with Prosecco, but close. A good Cremant can be had for about $5 more than a brand name Prosecco. It’s the best deal in retail; worth every cent of the upgrade because that $5 gets you so much!

So, this year I’m featuring our Cremant selection as well as other méthode traditionnelle sparklers from other parts of the world and encourage you to consider them for yourself or as gifts this holiday season. Maybe it will be the start of something. We have plenty of Prosecco, too. But we’ve all had plenty of Prosecco, too.

We love to discover new accessories and bar tools. The Coravin pivot has become essential in our process for tasting and assessing new wines. It makes it easy to preserve even the finest wines so that the entire staff can evaluate them, regardless of whether they are working that day or back in the store the following week. The Coravin really works.  Our customers love it because it enables them to drink a bottle of wine when they want, versus all in one fell swoop. The Viski Smoked Cocktail Kit will delight the mixologist in your life. The Durand bottle opener is a thoughtful gift for anyone in your life who collects. It enables your wine-lover to extract older corks without breakage.