GREAT GIFTS

1 HUGH JOHNSON’S S POCKET WINE GUIDE 2021

€14.99, widely available

Hugh Johnson was the founder of modern winewriting and is, by the far, the bestselling author in the e field. His World Atlas as of

Wine, first published in 1971 was, and remains, one of the most important wine works ever published. Every year, even at the age, now, of 81, he edits the encyclopaedic but very concise Pocket Wine Guide which is kept up-to-date by a team of researchers. It’s an essential piece of kit, even in the digital age, for anyone who takes wine seriously.

2 RETRONAUT IRISH WHISKY

€125, blackwaterdistillery.ie Only 1,160 bottles of this whiskey were creat created and most of them have sold out but there are still a few, f increasingly rare, ones still available. It’s a 17-year-old 17- yea whiskey, aged exclusively in Bourbon Bou barrels, with a aw wonderful vanilla character cha with notes of toffee and honeysuckle. ho The length le is especially impressive im and it’s essentially es a collector’s co item. The sp spelling ‘whisky’ is deli deliberate, by the way, and seems to have been interchangeable with ‘whiskey’ in days gone by. It’s the only Irish one to be so labelled.

3 RIEDEL APPLE NY DECANTER

€40, mitchellandson.com Riedel of Austria make some of the most sought-after and expensive wine glasses in the world, each designed to work best with p particular grapes and styles. This apple-shaped decanter nter is designed to allow a large surface area of wine e to be in contact with air. It’s s important to decant nt old fine wines and vintage ports in order to keep the sediment out of your wine glasses.