How to Make Wine Kits
- 1). Decide what type of wine kit you want to make. Common themes are wine-and-snack combinations from California, Italy, France, or Oregon. Who are you making the basket for? If the recipient likes Italian food, go with the Italian theme, or if they live on the East Coast of the U.S., create a basket from wine from the West Coast, for example.
- 2). Choose wines for the basket. The wine will be the focal point of the kit. Snacks and basket decorations will revolve around the wines. Use two or three wines in the basket (depending on the basket's size) that are either different types of wine from the same vineyard, or wines from different wineries with similar flavors. For example, if you choose a California wine basket from Napa Valley, find a chardonnay, pinot noir and cabernet from a single Napa winery. Or for an Old World Italian theme, choose a trio of wines with similar flavors, such as a white wine with earthy tones and fruit, a sangiovese and a spicy red wine.
- 3). Add snacks to the basket that correspond with the flavors in the wine. If you have an Italian theme, add little boxes or tins of bread-dipping herbal oils, pasta, spices or seasonings, salami and cheese, olives or fresh mozzarella. For red wines, good additions are gourmet dark chocolate, chocolate-covered nuts or pretzels, hard candies, dried cranberries or apricots, rye crackers with cheese spreads and gourmet smoked meats. For white wine, good additions include Brie cheese, cinnamon-roasted cashews, honey-mustard pretzels, buttery cookies, smoked salmon, gourmet potato chips, toffee, chocolate-covered raisins or fruit, roasted red peppers, goat cheese dip mix, or bleu cheese.
- 4). Complete the wine kit with additions that help the recipient understand wine better. Throw in some information inserts about the vineyard you bought from, or about red or white wine generally. Also add a cheese knife, wine bottle opener, re-corker and small wineglasses if desired.
- 5). Stuff the bottom of the basket with cellophane or tissue paper for padding. Arrange all of the wine, snacks and additions in the basket in an attractive way, positioning the bottles of wine in the middle, leaning slightly backwards so they don't block anything from view. Use more cellophane or tissue paper to fill space between the items.
- 6). Wrap the entire basket with clear or colored cellophane if you desire to make sure nothing falls out, and tie a large colorful ribbon with a bow around the basket for a festive appearance. You can also add fake fruit such as green or red grapes for decoration.
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