Red Wines to Toast with This Holiday Season

The “Rocks District” of Northern Oregon is the only wine growing region in the country with boundaries defined by a single soil type and land structure. Born from rocky soil, the wines often boast 90-point scores or higher. This standout Syrah delivers complexity and minerality—exotic, perfumed, peppery.

Located in the Stag’s Leap district of Napa, this forward-thinking winery often borrows from rock music to name its wines. This bottling features Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from the estate’s Twin Peaks vineyard and Cabernet Franc from the vineyards of wine luminary David Abreu.

Crafted in the Bordeaux tradition, this blend plays with wines from two vintages, an uncommon practice in the United States that offers the winemaker a broader palate. It features Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc for a full-bodied, luscious palate that’s ready to drink now.

A single-vineyard Bordeaux blend from Mount Veeder, this wine isn’t made every year. Its rugged mountain origins show through in the glass, boasting notes of cedar, lilac, and cardamom. The estate calls the wine “poised to reward the patient collector” but we’ll leave that up to you.

One of the oldest family-owned wineries in Washington, this topflight Cabernet maker celebrates its 40th vintage with this bottling, the most accessible of its wines. Floral notes, sagebrush, and deep, luscious fruit compote components burst from the glass. It’s tough to find but worth seeking out.

Crafted by one of our favorite winemakers, Dan Petroski, this flagship wine from the winery founded in 1895 is built for aging. But if you don’t want to wait 20–30 years to enjoy the violet, dried herbs, and black tea notes in the 100 percent Cab, have the courtesy to decant it for at least a few hours.

Will Harlan grew up helping his father make big-ticket cult wines in the Napa Valley. Made from vines deemed too young for Harlan Estates, Bond, and Promontory, this Cabernet Sauvignon aged five years in the barrel offers the everyman a chance to taste greatness.

A textbook version of the ubiquitous sommelier’s knife, but with a comfier handle, a sharp blade for slicing through capsules, and a double-hinged lever for easy extraction of even the most stubborn synthetic corks.

We’ve duked it out over fancy glassware in the past, but this series of wine glasses might make converts of the mason jar set. With a flatter bottom profile and undulating curves to afford for vigorous swirls, the silohouette of each glass is designed to provide maximum air contact with the contents. That means the aromas meet your nose and meld with the palate of your wine to provide an orgiastic crescendo of sensory components. Try not to get any on your pants.

Made in Japan since 1967 and strengthened through an Ion-Exchange process, these glasses are compact, stackable, and ultra-durable. They’re often used for hot tea in ramen shops, but they function just as well with a weeknight Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (or a thumb of whiskey). Bonus: A six-pack of these costs less than a single Riedel!

Glass half-empty or half-full is not what we’re mulling with this smart series of tumblers, which features relief sculptures of prominent mountains in the base. What better way to contemplate the heights you’ll reach in the year ahead than to drain a dram with heft like this?

Go ahead, drop $300 on a fancy blown-glass decanter. That’s blown money, once it meets the edge of an elbow after the third bottle of the night. We’ll be drinking the money we saved by using this dirt-cheap and durable Pyrex surrogate, which is made for the lab but works damn well enough on wine, too. It’s food safe, brand-new, and best of all cheaper than most wine we’d recommend.

Previous models of this system injected inert Argon gas through the cork via hypodermic needle, pushing wine back out and preserving the delicate juice inside. That’s fine for sipping your way through $800 bottles of cult cab, but for the average drinker just looking to prolong something pretty damn good, or maybe to work through a few bottles in a night without the pressure of draining them, this system is a life-saver. Instead of punching through the cork, you’ll swap on grommeted rubber necks after the cork is removed. The result: Four weeks versus a few days of post-cork longevity—and zero opener’s remorse.

Consider a dual-zone compact wine fridge like NewAir’s—perfect for cramped kitchens.