Short answer: the question is what to do with a bottle you did not choose, and the answer is three steps. Find out what it is and when it is ready before you do anything else. Open it with the person who gave it if there is any way to. And if there is not, you may pass it on, but only a bottle you would have bought yourself, and never back toward the person who gave it.
First, find out what you are holding
Most people put the gift bottle on the counter and decide what it is by how it looks. Heavy glass and a serious label, it goes in the closet for a special occasion. Light glass and a cute animal, it gets opened Thursday. Both guesses are wrong about a third of the time, and the wrong guess costs you the bottle.
The $14 Malbec with the gold foil is not improving in the closet. It was built to be drunk this year, and the special occasion you are saving it for will find it tired. The plain-looking Beaujolais from a producer you have never heard of might be the best thing anyone has handed you all year, and it wants a slight chill and a roast chicken, not a Thursday with takeout.
So before the bottle goes anywhere, learn three things: roughly what it cost, whether it is ready now, and if not, when. That takes a minute online or four seconds with a photo of the label, and it sorts every gift bottle into one of three piles.
The three piles
The Thursday bottle. Under about $20, meant for now. Open it this month with something simple. It is a kind gesture, not an heirloom, and the kindest thing you can do back is drink it while it is good and mention it to the giver.
The “they thought about it” bottle. Thirty to seventy dollars, from a real producer, often a wine the giver loves. This is the one to open with the giver. Invite them. “You brought that Barbaresco in June, come help me open it” is the best thank-you note ever written, and it costs you a dinner you wanted to have anyway. If it needs a few years, say so and put a date on it, then keep the date.
The bottle you cannot pronounce. Somebody’s boss, a client, a wedding guest with a point to make. A Gaja, a Sassicaia, a Grand Cru Burgundy, a first-growth Bordeaux. Do not open this on a Tuesday, and do not open it tonight because people are over and it is the only red in the house. Look it up first. Some of these are ready now and some are a decade away, and the difference between opening a 2019 Barolo now and in 2032 is the difference between a tight, tannic wine you will shrug at and the best bottle of your life. Write down the window. Then, and I mean this, open it in the window, not after. A great bottle you never open is not a possession. It is a regret with a cork in it.
The rules of passing it on
Yes, you can give a gift bottle to someone else. Wine is made to travel. But there are rules, and they are not complicated.
Only pass on a bottle you would have bought for that person yourself. If you would not spend the money, do not spend the bottle.
Never send it back toward the circle it came from. The person who gave it to you knows their own friends, and that bottle has a memory.
Never pass on a bottle that is past its window. A tired wine is a worse gift than no wine. If you are not sure, that is the point of looking it up.
Take the gift receipt out. Take the gift bag with somebody else’s name on it out. You would be amazed.
And never pass on the “they thought about it” bottle. Somebody chose that one. Drink it with them.
The December problem
Most gift bottles arrive in the six weeks before New Year, and most of them are drunk in the same six weeks or never. That is the wrong pattern for both piles that matter. The Thursday bottles should be open by February. The serious ones should be in a note on your phone with a date next to each, and the dates should be spread across the next several years so that every winter you have one or two coming into their window and a reason to call whoever gave them to you.
That is the whole trick of a collection, at any size. It is not a closet. It is a calendar.
Winey
Winey is the sommelier inside Winosseur, the iPhone app that reads a bottle from a photo and tells you whether it is worth the money and when to open it.