12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover: The Vinnibag
Day six of my 12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover goes to the VinniBag.
The VinniBag is a reusable travel bag with inflatable air chambers and is designed to provide superior protection against impact and leakage.
The VinniBag can be used for wine, olive oil, liquor, fragile items etc., and can hold most 750ml bottles—even larger magnum bottles (Bordeaux style only).
The Vinnibag exceeds all airline requirements and has been independently tested for alititude and temperature changes.
The VinniBag is recyclable & 100% USA Made. You can actually send used VinniBags back and the company has them turned into garden hoses to help keep our planet green and will give you a discount on your next VinniBag purchase.
The VinniBag is made by Ellessco, a women-owned company originally founded by a mother and her daughter (who still get along!). Their passion for travel, design, and technology led them to develop innovative products for life on the go.
The Vinnibag is $28 and $25 if you buy 2 at a time. You can purchase them here.
Why do I love the VinniBag? It’s pretty simple. It gets our wine from point A to point B with no bottle breakage. Andy and I have used it repeatedly over 3 years and it’s never failed. It even transported a magnum of Scribner Bend’s Black Hat Tempranillo to Mexico in perfect condition. Thank you, VinniBag! 🙂
You can find VinniBag on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter here. Check back tomorrow for day seven of my 12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover! Cheers!
12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover: A Membership to the California Wine Club
My number five selection of my 12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover belongs to the California Wine Club. And my recommendation applies especially to non-California residents who are not as fortunate as I am to live within an hour of hundreds of small production wineries.
The California Wine Club focuses on small family wineries handcrafting extraordinary wine in quantities too limited to be found in local stores or shops. In 1990, wine club founders Bruce and Pam Boring discovered that these wine making families were the most passionate in the wine world and that their wines were the hidden gems of wine country! Together Bruce and Pam embarked on a journey to help these artisan wineries introduce their exquisite wines to the world.
Each month they visit all areas of California’s wine country. Then they share their delicious discoveries with you and your gift recipients, along with the rich stories of each winery. Plus you can reorder your favorite wines at up to 50% off normal retail.
With five wine of the month club levels to choose from, they have wine selections and wine gifts to suit all tastes and budgets. For questions or to place an order call 1-877-826-2101
The reason I am recommending this wine club as a gift idea is because you can pay month to month and cancel at any time. Also, Bruce and Pam the time to personally visit each winery (can you say dream job?), meet the families, the winemakers and then select two bottles of their best to ship to their customers. There are never any private labels and no bulk wine.
You can find the California Wine Club on Facebook here on Twitter here and they have a Pinterest page here. Check back tomorrow for day six of my 12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover! Cheers!
12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover: jcoco Chocolate Bars Gift Set
It’s day two of my 12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover and my second Christmas selection is this gift set of chocolate bars from jcoco chocolate.
jcoco chocolate is a remarkable new line of American couture chocolate. Like fashion’s haute couture, jcoco draws inspiration from cultures across the globe to create a fresh, contemporary style.
Their line of flavors include: On Dasher! On Ginger!, Peanut Strawberry Baobab (like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich dipped in chocolate), Black Fig Pistachio, Vanuatu Coconut Pecan, Edamame Sea Salt, Agave Quinoa Sesame, Cayenne Veracruz Orange and Noble Dark.
jcoco sent me the three bars you see above to sample and though my favorite of the three was the Noble Dark (72% couverture chocolate with Casa Luker cocoa nibs from Colombia), the most Christmassy flavor was On Dasher! On Ginger, a bar with pieces of candied ginger and a hint of allspice (below).
What I really liked about the packaging of the bars is that each package has three individually wrapped 1 oz bars. This makes it perfect to open a package, take one bar out for yourself, and share the other two in the package with your besties. 🙂 I hope you’ll check back tomorrow for day three of my 12 Days of Christmas Picks for the Food and Wine Lover! Cheers!
You can order jcoco directly from their website here. You can follow jcoco on Facebook here or follow them on Twitter here.
Holiday Gift Idea: Wine Samplers from TastingRoom.com
Last week I was sent two boxes of wine samples from TastingRoom.com, a unique online retailer that enables consumers to discover and consume wine in several formats. The company is currently promoting a new series of celebrity chef wine samplers, curated by Chef Emeril Lagasse.
The two collections, Emeril’s Holiday Party Sampler and Emeril’s Everyday Sampler, include Emeril’s favorite wines from around the country, his suggested wine and food pairings for every meal, and customized tasting notes.
Emeril’s Holiday Party Sampler is a party-helper that offers the perfect pairing from Thanksgiving to New Years and every occasion in between. Priced at $39.95 per wine sampler, the collection includes:
- 2010 Schug Carneros Chardonnay
- 2010 Patz & Hall Sonoma Coast Chardonnay
- 2010 Patz & Hall Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir
- 2007 Jake-Ryan Cellars Bald Mtn. Vineyard Zinfandel
- 2009 Gundlach Bundschu Sonoma Valley Merlot
- 2009 Clayhouse “Show Pony” Red Cedar Vineyard Paso Robles Petite Sirah
Emeril’s Everyday Sampler is a hand-selected collection of wines ideal for long lunches with friends or everyday dinners with the family. Priced at $32.95 per wine sampler, the collection includes:
- 2011 Dry Creek Vineyard Dry Creek Valley Sauvignon Blanc
- 2010 Dr. Frank Finger Lakes Semi-Dry Riesling
- 2010 Coppola “Director’s Cut” Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
- 2010 Il Cuore “The Heart” Mendocino County Barbera
- 2010 Decoy Winery Sonoma County Merlot
- 2010 Fess Parker Santa Barbara County Syrah
You can buy the Holiday Sampler HERE and the Everyday Sampler HERE.
We brought the Everyday Sampler with us on our recent trip to Ixtapa, and enjoyed tasting the wines on our private patio outside our hotel room. This past weekend, we brought the Holiday Sampler with us to Incline Village and played a little game of “guess the varietal”. The bottles are really the perfect size for tasting (even shared by two people), and serve just the right amount to sense the wines properly (tannins, bouquet, color).
TastingRoom.com‘s innovative wine samplers are curated collections of six premium wines from around the world packaged in small 50ml (1.7 oz.) bottles. Their wines by the glass allow consumers to enjoy a single 100ml (3.4 oz.) glass of wine (singles or 4-packs) similar to a restaurant experience but without leaving home. TastingRoom.com‘s wine club allows members to make their own selections for each shipment, which includes a sampler and two bottles of the recipient’s choice. Whether it’s by the taste, by the glass or by the bottle, TastingRoom.com lets consumers enjoy wine the way they want it.
TastingRoom Inc. uses its patented TASTE Technology™ to transfer wine directly from regular-sized wine bottles (750ml and up) into smaller formats. A focus on wine quality drives every step of the transfer and testing process so that wineries and consumers alike can rest assured that the samples are a true representation of the original. TastingRoom.com customers can be confident they will enjoy every bottle they buy because they are able to sample the wine prior to making a purchase.
The new collection of samplers can be purchased online at www.TastingRoom.com. Take 25% off your holiday order with promo code HOLIDAY25 at checkout.
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