The Season for Regifting How not to give
someone a bottle of wine By Joel Stein
ESSAY
BOTTLE SERVICE
78 DECEMBER 2019
THE SAME MOLECULES of water have been on Earth since before
the dinosaurs, given and returned in a constant cycle. So it is, I
believe, with bottles of Veuve Clicquot. People gift it to me, and
like all humans, I pretend to be happy, store it in my cellar, and
then regift it to others, the garish yellow box never opened. It
is possible, in fact, that there is no Veuve Clicquot Champagne
at all, only heavy Veuve Clicquot boxes.
Not one of the dozen people who have given me Veuve
Clicquot has inquired if I like Veuve Clicquot, because liking
Veuve Clicquot is not the point of giving Veuve Clicquot. It is
the perfect lazy holiday gift: It’s expensive but not prohibitive;
everyone knows its price point, so you get full credit; it’s got
a pretty label; it tastes innocuous and sweet. It has everything
that Veuve’s far more expensive (but worth it) La Grande Dame
bottling doesn’t have. Grande Dame has never been given to me
because that would require asking me what kind of wine I like.
The only people I know who have done that are sommeliers and
my mom, partly because that requires listening to me talk in
