Wine Gift Baskets offers the perfect solution to those who can't decide on what to send a special friend, family member, lover or potential lover! These are the most popular selections of gift baskets where the primary theme, item or ingredient is wines. Many baskets feature wines and cheeses, gourmet foods, chocolates, fresh fruits and other related gift basket items. You can browse through dozens of yummy gift baskets filled with fine wines of all brands. You can shop and compare prices to find the best deals to fit your budget. Our Wine gift baskets are of the utmost superior quality and always arrives on time or you pay nothing.
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top | home gift baskets | sweet treats | send flowers | romantic gifts | candles | sexy gifts | just roses | just for him | just for her Interesting Wine and Vineyard Facts and TriviaFun Wine Facts Q & A
1. When was the first known reference to a specific wine vintage? Roman Historian Pliny the Elder rated 121 B.C. as a vintage “of the highest excellence.” 2. How old was the wine being “reviewed”? 200 years old! Pliny the Elder wrote the history of the Roman Empire around 70 A.D. 3. A bottle of opened wine stored in the refrigerator lasts how much longer than it would if stored at room temp? 6-16 times longer 4. How many oak species are there? 400 5. How many are used in making oak barrels? 20 6. What percent of an oak tree is suitable for making high grade wine barrels? 5 percent 7. The 1996 grape crop in Napa Valley was down what percentage from normal? 20-25% 8. What are the top three U.S. states in terms of wine consumption? CA, NY, FL 9. What percentage of legal-aged Americans contacted in a Nielson phone survey drink wine? 58% 10. What percentage of restaurant wine sales do red wines represent? 54.6% 11. What is the average cost of the grapes used to produce a $20 bottle of wine?$2.64 Other Interesting Vino Facts Jefferson and wine: From Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen E Ambrose, comes the following historical note. Jefferson took up residence in the President’s House in 1801, after his inauguration as the 3rd President of the United States. “Jefferson ran the place with only eleven servants (Abigail Adams had needed 30!), brought up from Monticello. There were no more powdered wigs, much less ceremony. Washington and Adams, according to Republican critics, had kept up almost a royal court. Jefferson substituted Republican simplicity - to a point. He had a French chef, and French wines he personally selected. His salary was $25,000 per year - a princely sum, but the expenses were also great. In 1801 Jefferson spent $6500 for provisions and groceries, $2700 for servants (some of whom were liveried), $500 for Lewis’s salary, and $3,000 for wine.” Dom Perignon (1638-1715), the Benedictine Abbey (at Hautvillers) cellar master who is generally credited with “inventing” the Champagne making process, was blind. Thomas Jefferson helped stock the wine cellars of the first five U.S. presidents and was very partial to fine Bordeaux and Madeira. To prevent a sparkling wine from foaming out of the glass, pour an ounce, which will settle quickly. Pouring the remainder of the serving into this starter will not foam as much. Old wine almost never turns to vinegar. It spoils by oxidation. U.S. 1998 sales of white and blush wines were 67% of total table wine sales. Red wines were 33% of sales. At Beekman’s, the best we can calculate (since we don’t track the color of wine sales from Chile, Australia or Spain or of jug wines) is that our sales of white and blush comprised only 45% of total wine sales. Reds accounted for 55%. That’s in dollars, not unit sales. American wines accounted for 47% of our wine sales vs. 53% for imported wines. In King Tut’s Egypt (around 1300 BC), the commoners drank beer and the upper class drank wine. According to local legend, the great French white Burgundy, Corton-Charlemagne, owes its existence, not to the emperor Charlemagne, but to his wife. The red wines of Corton stained his white beard so messily that she persuaded him to plant vines that would produce white wines. Charlemagne ordered white grapes to be planted. Thus: Corton-Charlemagne! When Leif Ericsson landed in North America in A.D. 1001, he was so impressed by the proliferation of grapevines that he named it Vinland. Cork was developed as a bottle closure in the late 17th century. It was only after this that bottles were lain down for aging, and the bottle shapes slowly changed from short and bulbous to tall and slender. Merlot was the “hot” varietal in 1999, but in 1949, the “darling of the California wine industry” was Muscatel! The Napa Valley crop described in 1889 newspapers as the finest of its kind grown in the U.S. was hops. When Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii in volcanic lava in A.D. 79, it also buried more than 200 wine bars. The “top five” chateau of Bordeaux, according to the 1855 Classification, were actually only four: Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion. In the only change to that historic classification, Mouton-Rothschild was added in 1973. Grapevines cannot reproduce reliably from seed. To cultivate a particular grape variety, grafting (a plant version of cloning) is used. Wine has so many organic chemical compounds it is considered more complex than blood serum. Wine grapes are subject to mold when there’s too much moisture. Tight clustered Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir are most susceptible to mold. The looser clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon allow for faster drying of moist grapes and thus make it less susceptible. The average age of a French oak tree harvested for use in wine barrels is 170 years! The lip of a red wine glass is sloped inward to capture the aromas of the wine and deliver them to your nose. “Cold maceration” means putting the grapes in a refrigerated environment for several days before starting fermentation to encourage color extraction. This is being done more and more frequently with Pinot Noir since the skins of this varietal don’t have as much pigmentation as other red varietals. Frenchman Georges de Latour came to America in the late 1800’s to prospect for gold. He didn’t find much gold, but he founded a truly golden winery: Beaulieu Vineyard. From 1970 until the late 1980s, sales and consumption of wine in the United States held a ratio of about 75% white to 25% red. At the turn of the Millennium, the ratio is closer to 50-50. In the year 2000, Americans spent $20 billion on wine. 72% of that was spent on California wines. In ancient Rome bits of toast were floated in goblets of wine. There is a story that a wealthy man threw a lavish party in which the public bath was filled with wine. Beautiful young women were invited to swim in it. When asked his opinion of the wine, one guest responded: “I like it very much, but I prefer the toast.” (referring, presumably, to the women) Labels were first put on wine bottles in the early 1700s, but it wasn’t until the 1860s that suitable glues were developed to hold them on the bottles. Top Napa Valley vineyard land sells for over $100,000/acre! In the year 2000, there were 847 wineries in California. Wine is often called the nectar of the gods, but Sangiovese is the only grape named after a god. Sangiovese means “blood of Jove.” Ninety-two percent of California wineries produce fewer than 100,000 cases per year. Sixty percent produce fewer than 25,000 cases. American wine drinkers consume more wine on Thanksgiving than any other day of the year. As of 2000, 554,000 acres in California were planted to grapevines. As early as 4000 BC, the Egyptians were the first people to use corks as stoppers. The wine industry generates 145,000 jobs in California. top | home     
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