Pamela Vandyke Price
Without entirely approving of the man I heard of who gave his wife a hundred hairnets, I do see that the gift in bulk has charm. The girl in, I think, one of Dorothy Parker's poems, who got so bored with the millionaire giving her "one perfect rose," and the recipient of that partridge in its pear tree et at exemplify the extremes of present-giving. And frankly, for the gourmet friend, I really think it's hard to beat a cash, sum deposited to one's credit at wine merchant, provision dept., culinary equipment store, bookshop or simply bank. The hard stuff can always, somehow, come in useful.'
If you are shy of being so crude, then Peter Dominic have evolved wine tokens, cashable at any of their branches, and available in small to large sizes. Or you can arrange for a wine merchant to send, for example, a bottle of sherry, port or Madeira monthly, for the year to come, ensuring that somebody is regularly reminded that you thought of them. Or you can advise loved ones that a particular restaurant will entertain them, at your expense, whenever they choose to book up (though you might do well .to put a limit on your hospitality and connive with the restaurateur to inhibit any abandoned orderings of out of season specialities and magnums of 1929 Mouton Rothschild).
Most food emporia make up hampers and gift caskets of wines, though I admit that I never seem to have exactly the Meads to fit these. One gets so many things ' over ' — and it isn't all that easy to dispose of jars of green cocktail onions, somebody else's version of Cumberland butter. Perhaps the answer is that a shop's selection of a suitable and acceptable gift is a safe bet when you don't know the people to whom you are giving it very well, or when ' they ' are some sort of institution — office, shop and so on — where people can sort out what they want and pass on anything that isn't their style. There are the single big presents and the expanded ones that I consider sure-fire successes, either because everybody wants them or because they can always be redistributed: really large pots of caviare (allow four ordinary portions per person and you'll be on the safe side); a dozen or more cheap but correctly shaped wine glasses (' Paris goblet' is the technical term and a 6-8 oz size the most sensible and all-purpose), such as can be bought at any chainstore or catering equipment shop. A dozen or more linen glass cloths — so that you can throw out your sordid used ones, or declassify them to pot-wiping. A pair of Baccarat tulip glasses, fine enough to sway *on their stems and give to the sensitive hand pressure — for the couple to whom you give a bottle (or a case) of one of the luxury Champagnes, such as Roederer Cristal, Bollinger RD, Dom Ruinart, Dom Perignon, Taittinger Comtes de Champagne, Mercier Reserve de l'Empereur, De Venoge Vin des Princes (the last two matured in the decanters in which they are sold, and which are pretty enough to keep). A single bottle of straight malt is good; more, perhaps to provide a comparative tasting, would be even better. Sets of things, even quite humble ones, are great fun for the gourmet: half a dozen exotic soups, an assortment of wooden, bone or china spoons, packs of freshly dried herbs (existing supplies are getting a bit dreary in most kitchens by now), packs of French ' infusions ' to experiment with (pandering to the witch instinct in most of us, and many of them delicious), two dozen small tins of salted peanuts, so that you can enjoy fresh ones day after day, four or more cans of different pâtés (small enough for one person to use), ranges of marmalades, honeys, a pair of flavoured vinegars, mustards, and oil (always a luxury).
For people who really can stock up for themselves on first growth clarets and domaine-bottled Burgundies, a bottle or two 'of really good ' plonk' that they may not know about is usually as great a pleasure as something from 'that chain store' for a millionairess; independent wine merchants usually have something of their own. the retail chains one or more of something in the ' ordinaire ' category. For those who are usually restricted to plonk, a few half-bottles of something rather good can enliven suppers on trays. And for the person who has everything and knows everything about wine — a bottle of a pleasant white wine from an English vineyard. The Merrydown Wine Company (Horam, Sussex) list several, and Charles Kinloch have just started offering a new one — Kentish Sovereign. They usually cost..about £1.25-£1.50, and be confident — there are plenty of aristocratic palates who would prefer a well-made wine of this kind (for aperitif or first course drinking) than something pretentiously labelled Produce of Ruritania and frankly nasty.
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