What is the Most Popular Holiday Gift Wine?

By Gina Trippi

Answer: A bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for around $50! While we hear all kinds of requests during the holidays, including “something different”, “something low alcohol”, “something French”, or “something big and bold”, the most popular request remains a bottle of West Coast Cabernet Sauvignon around $50!”

Here are five great bottles “around $50” that all present that warm and fuzzy holiday feeling.

The Rookie: Chemist turned cop turned winemaker presents “The Rookie” from Guardian Cellars, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State.

The wine is full bodied but still graceful with notes of fresh blackberry, ripe black cherry, bay leaf, thyme, wildflowers, dark chocolate and black pepper. Aged 22 months French Oak, the blend presents balance between fruit and oak.

My Favorite Neighbor: The winery says “My Favorite Neighbor,” celebrating family and community, is meant to be shared wherever life finds you, over sunsets, quiet nights, and at the dinner table.

Robert Parker of The Wine Advocate awarded “My Favorite Neighbor” 96 Points saying: “The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon is more elegant and focused, with medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of cassis, redcurrants, green tobacco, and cedary spice.

I love its texture, it has ripe, polished tannins, plenty of sweet fruit, and a great, great finish, all while staying in a relatively compact, and again, elegant package. As I’ve written in the past, it would cost three to four times the price from Napa.”

Kith and Kin 2019: The name, Kith & Kin, is Old English for “Friends & Family.” The wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from all corners of Napa Valley to create an approachable wine.

Complex with aromas of violets, cola, fig and plum on the nose. The palate explodes with ripe blackberry and boysenberry, softening through the mid-palate with black cherry, cocoa, and allspice with notes of licorice and tarragon on the finish.

Wine Spectator awarded 92 Points saying: “Ripe and lush, but also fresh, with a very enticing beam of loganberry, açaí berry and raspberry fruit flavors driving through, flecked with anise and apple wood accents along the way. There’s focused, juicy energy through the finish.”

2021 DAOU Discovery Cabernet Sauvignon: A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon with 11% Petit Verdot, 8% Merlot and 1% Cabernet Franc, matured 10 months in French oak. Deep ruby-purple color, you find intense aromas of cherry and blackberry jam complemented by dark chocolate, tobacco leaf, and desert sage.

The nose also reveals nuances of wet gravel, sandalwood, and plum pudding with subtle notes of fennel, black olive and eucalyptus.

On the palate, a swirl of black raspberry, pomegranate, cherry preserve, and currant melds seamlessly with crushed herbs, fig and cranberry, leaving lovely notes of boysenberry, rhubarb, graphite, and dried thyme. Robert Parker of The Wine Advocate awarded 93 Points to DAOU Discovery.

Share the Holiday Spirit. Give a gift of wine!

Metro Wines Asheville

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Gina Trippi