It’s inevitable: come to wine country, will purchase stuff in winery gift
shops. Like honeycomb to a bee, the umpteenth winery gift shop was pulling
you – hard – into its depths to make that last purchase. Although it sounds
strange now, you really believed at the time that you absolutely needed
the logo-emblazoned hot pad. I mean, how could you not?
Sounds familiar, right? We’ve all been here before. After all, it’s the
way of wine country: the retail way. No matter how hard you try, you usually
just can’t resist making at least a purchase or two (or three or four) while
sniffing and swirling your way through the countryside.
Sending out an SOS
Not that it’s a bad thing! In fact, I’m probably one of the last
people who’d ever dream of bad-mouthing shopping. With its therapeutic
qualities (well, at least until the Visa bill arrives), shopping can be
a wonderfully restorative and energizing activity. These qualities certainly
apply to wine country shopping.
Problem is, most of the time the benefits stop there, when the trip ends.
Back home, just as you toss the twentieth tricked-out logo corkscrew into
your already overflowing drawer of wine gadgets the thought crosses your
mind, “what if I actually came home with something I might really use?”
Well, good news travelers: I’ve compiled some suggestions for you for just
this sort of wine merch that’s both useful AND guaranteed to bring back
all sorts of warm fuzzy memories of the good place with each and every use.
That’s right: you’re likely to actually use these things, and not just out
of sheer retail guilt.
Because savvy travelers should never have to go through that.
The Entertaining Wine Country Cookbook
Ah, the wine country cookbook - possibly the most frequently purchased-and-then-never-used
item from winery gift shops. What a travesty! With the girl and the fig:
More than 100 Recipes from the Acclaimed California Wine Country Restaurant,
the award-winning cooking tome from standout Sonoma chef Sondra Bernstein,
you’ll actually want to cook up the many recipes inspired by her eponymous
Sonoma restaurant of the same name. Delightful topics covered include
“From the Garden to the Stockpot,” a chapter on using fresh, local ingredients
to add flair to your cooking, and “the girl & the fig cheese experience,”
which hardly needs explaining. With practical information on delicious
French-inspired California cuisine doled out with plenty of heart and
humor, the girl & the fig cookbook brings you back to wine country,
each and every time. Now that’s reason to cook.
The Practical Wine Tote
Wine merch is notorious for being ego-driven – meaning the goods
more often serve to inflate your ego than to help you get anything
particularly useful done. That top-of-the-line, stainless steel
monogrammed wine bottle carrier, inlaid in velvet? Never used
it, right? Ditto for the elaborate picnic basket-inspired wine
bottle/flatware/cutlery/ stemware/provisions carryall. What you
really need, in the end, is a practical wine tote that matches
up looks and utility and isn’t tricked out with all sorts of
useless embellishments. In a word, you need a neoprene wine tote from
Built NY. Made from the same stuff as wetsuits, the colorful totes come
in an array of colors, patterns and sizes (check out the cool cami pattern!),
giving you lots to choose from. Plus, they lay flat when they’re not in
use, which means they’ll fit easily into your suitcase for the trip home.
The Gourmet Getaway tote may just be the best tote of the bunch, with ample
room for food items and an array of different bottle sizes (e.g.
beer, wine, bottled water). And because the neoprene material both insulates
and protects, your goods are guaranteed to stay cool and intact. So you
can worry about something else – like fitting in one more tasting room before
your flight.
The Savvy Traveler