For all of my talk about not digging big-ass wines, I sure do seem to end up talking about a lot of “good” big-ass wines.

Take this past Christmas, for example.

We host some of my wife’s family every third Christmas or so, as part of a rotation that has us visiting them in Florida and Washington on the other years. It’s a special time for me, because Mrs. Dudette has a great extended family, full of genuinely nice people who are kind enough to put up with me over the course of several days (primarily because they want to spend time with my daughter, I suspect… but I’m quite happy to settle for the delusion that they also enjoy my company). And when we host Christmas, Mrs. Dudette cooks a gourmet meat-and-potatoes feast in honor of her late grandmother, who succumbed to Alzheimer’s quite a few years ago but in her heyday apparently made a mean roast dinner.

The slow-roasted meat naturally gets me thinking about a big red, and for some reason, despite reservations, I find myself continually reaching for Mondavi Reserve wines for this holiday dinner thang. I mean, if Christmas dinner isn’t when you’re supposed to open up wines like these, then well the hell are you supposed to pop those corks?

I use the term “despite reservations” because, truth be told (don’t you hate that phrase, by the way? I mean, it’s not like I’ve been lying to you for years and am only now getting aroud to making statements with any veracity… ok, whatever…) I am always afraid that the Mondavi Reserve wines are going to burn me…

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…wine from “someplace else.”

On the hook for giving a wine geek a holiday gift this season? Here’s some advice for ya.

Skip the books.

Skip the gimmicky wine gizmos that take up way more kitchen drawer space than they’re worth in actually, tired-and-true utility (trust me on this one, I get samples of all of that sh*z and most of it isn’t worth the amount of air molecules it displaces in your home).

Skip all of it.

You really want to make an impression on your wine lover’s holiday season? Then don’t give him/her/it something that they’ll probably never actually use. Give ‘em something that they’ll drink, and will remember for a long time to come.

Give them something truly different: give ‘em wine from an off-the-well-trodden-path wine region…

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I do this because… well, honestly because I feel obligated.

You know that feeling you get in undergrad where you have a term paper with about two days before it’s due and you haven’t started it yet but you have to do it? The same feeling that marked the advent of the first day of school after Sumer vacation, or harkens the impending ring of the Monday-morning alarm after a night of overdoing it while watching Sunday Night Football?

I have that feeling.

Because I need to do the annual Thanksgiving holiday wine pairing article.

It’s my belief that the standard holiday wine pairing article is hackneyed and has, for most intents and purposes, jumped the shark. Why? Because no wine critic or educator knows your personal taste preferences nor do they know the ingredients of your Aunt’s famous casserole, which, after all, is only famous within your family and her glee club. So you’re far, far, far better served by going to a wine shop that you trust, telling the folks there what you like (here’s some help on figuring that out) and what food your serving, and getting their recommendations.

Your personal preferences always trump all, but at holiday time we’re rarely buying just for ourselves – and there are indeed some food & wine matchups that do not, in fact, match up. So while I could never give you exact holiday wine recommendations (at least, not without an exact holiday food match to go with it!), I can provide two general pieces of advice that might serve you well in narrowing down your selections…

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Whatever you like to drink.

End of discussion.

Seriously.

Look, no wine really goes all that well with processed candy anyway.

So why not do what a lot of people in my ‘hood do: grab a bottle or two of decent white vino, several beers, and convert one of your kids’ pull carts into a mobile drinks cooler and turn the whole thing into a mobile party (this is assuming you aren’t driving that mobile party to/from anywhere, and are able to walk the entire distance – so it’s a tactic best used for chauffeuring toddlers through their local neighborhood Halloween adventures).  Kids get their Halloween thrills, you get your block-party quota in, and everybody wins!

Also, and you’re probably not going to do this but just in case, don’t buy a crappy wine or a wine you probably won’t like just because it has a Werewolf on the label or something.

You’ve got a week to go in planning your Halloween party, people, don’t screw it up with bad juice dressed up in a seasonal costume by a bunch of marketing folks – because that would be a really scary way to toast the Hallow’s Eve festivities!

Cheers!