A recent survey in a British Sunday newspaper confirms what we passionate imbibers have suspected all along. People have had more socks, shower gel, scented candles, gardening gloves and Delia Smith books than they can stomach. Eighty per cent of those questioned about longed-for Christmas presents pointed towards drink.
If the same poll were taken in Ireland, I bet the result would be an even more resounding victory for bottles and their accompaniments. A national fondness for the stuff is only part of the reason. With consumption figures still climbing faster than anywhere else in Europe, wine is on a fashion high - up there with Mediterranean food, black clothes and white walls as the essence of modern living. And cocktails are making their biggest splash in decades.
I've had fun hunting around for presents which reflect this air of cool modernity - either because of the way they look or the way they tie in with new drinking trends. Also included, for classicists, are some more timeless treats - just one or two, at the more bearable end of the price spectrum, on the basis that anybody with hundreds of pounds to splurge on collector's items is unlikely to need any help from me.
A useful side effect of the Irish wine boom is that specialist shops are focusing more and more on the kind of paraphernalia that makes great gifts. Mitchells, which today opens a second shop in Glasthule, is particularly strong on glasses - besides having a revitalised and vastly increased list of wines. Terroirs in Donnybrook has the widest range of wine accessories I've seen, with particularly attractive decanters. McCabes, marvellously extended in Merrion Avenue, has far more room for gift items, including food, than in the past. Findlaters and Verlings have always been Christmas stalwarts, while the Dublin Wine Company in Malahide, newer to the scene, does a cracking line in hampers. Around the country, I'm certain special goodies have been laid in by many wine shops besides those which Santa's helpers have told me about - the Wine Vault in Waterford, Greenacres in Wexford and the Vineyard in Galway. Break out! Look beyond those traditional, ready-made boxed sets that have been around for yonks! I hope you'll find some inspiration in our Totally Cool Top 20:
1. Rondo shopping bag
(Haus, £10) This recent addition to the brilliantly designed Authentics range of household goods in opaque plastic is exactly what stylish wine buyers need - a smart but strong bag to bring home the booty. It's big enough to enable you to stack bottles flat, end to end, and inflexible enough to offer some protection. In white, orange, lemon, gentian blue . . .
2. The Wild Bunch: Great Wines From Small Producers
(By Patrick Matthews, Faber & Faber, £7.99) No, not another buyers' guide, but a book with a cracking story to tell about the passionate, opinionated, perfectionist, maverick small growers who are doing their damnedest to make wine interesting - not least by making interesting wines. Fresh and very exhilarating.
3. Chatsfield Mount Barker Riesling 1995
(Mitchells, £10.95; also Direct Wine Shipments, Belfast). From Western Australia (which is cool in every sense), a delectable example of Riesling in the smooth, lime-flavoured antipodean style that's winning Chardonnay-sated fans every second. From a small producer with pzazz . . .
4. Grahams Late Bottled Vintage Port 1991 5. (With a voucher for Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 1998; Dunnes, Roches, Tesco, Superquinn, SuperValus and many off-licences, total price £11.49) This is sensational value, since Hugh Johnson's nifty little slimline best-seller, worth £8.99, costs you nothing. An LBV in a soft, easy style, plus vital info in hideaway format.
5. Krosno conical decanter with frosted glass ball stopper
(Foko, £33.95) Beautiful - that's all. So many decanters are fuddy-duddy old things, but this one is strikingly modern. It's also well crafted, in heavyish glass.
6. Wine Spectator
(Irish price per issue currently close to £5; annual subscription for Irish readers, postage included, $125) Most wine buffs buy themselves Decanter and Wine, but America's main mag for the afflicted is a rarer treat. It looks superb, is more international in outlook than before and can't resist good food. Highly prized as a conversational weapon. "Surely I read in Wine Spectator that . . .?"
7. Le Nez du Vin - Make Scents of Wine
(Terroirs, £35) A mini wine appreciation kit developed by Burgundian Jean Lenoir, in which six key aromas are presented in little bottles with an explanatory booklet. (There's also a monster kit of 25 bottles at £145.) Novel.
8. ISO tasting glass
(Stock, £2.50, and other outlets including many wine merchants) The glass all noses in training need - indeed the one even the most finely tuned snouts use more than any other. Its tulip-shape traps those fleeting aromas. It is simple, passably handsome and pleasantly inexpensive.
9. Magnum of Champagne Roederer Brut Premier
(Searsons, Terroirs, Verlings and some other independents, £60- £70) A huge pleasure in double measure - one of the most elegant non-vintage champagnes on the market, from a house whose reputation is as fine as its presentation. The most convivial gift there is.
10. Tall jug/carafe
(Habitat, £7.95) What a steal! Just the thing for blind-tasting games at home (it looks a sight better than a bottle wrapped in a paper bag). Also a handy rescue device: decant a young toughie into this and it should soften. And a water enhancer, too.
11. Domaine Besancenot-Mathouillet Aloxe-Corton 1993
(Burgundy Direct, tel 01 289 6615, £19.50 if you buy a case - which can be mixed) For Burgundy-lovers, or just lovers, one of the most sensuous and utterly gorgeous wines to have crossed my lips in recent times. Delicate at first, then its subtle power emerges . . .
12. Riedel Vinum Burgundy glass
(Mitchells, Searsons, Gibneys Malahide, De Vine Wine Shop Castleknock, Direct Wine Shipments Belfast, O'Donovans Cork, Octavius Sligo, Vineyard Galway, usually £13.25) Made specially to heighten the seductive powers of Pinot Noir. Just one of many glasses scientifically devised by this renowned Austrian company to enhance the flavours of different wines by directing them to different parts of the tongue. Daft? It works! At the recent Wine Fair even die-hard sceptics were won over.
13. Schott Zwiesel champagne flute
(Widely available from leading wine merchants, £8-9) If you can't afford the peerless Riedel, this is a pretty good alternative with the same elegant feel, the same respect for weight and wine-friendly form.
14. Green Point Brut, Domaine Chandon, 1993
(McCabes, Redmonds, Verlings, Thomas's Deli Foxrock, Gibneys Malahide, Vineyard Galway and other outlets, usually £15.99) Pop goes the Zwiesel? Match that snazzy glass with one of the New World's most refined, stylish sparklers - from the Australian arm of champagne producers Moet & Chandon.
15. Stainless steel sparkling wine stopper
(Galleria, £15) In the unlikely event of an unfinished bottle, this will keep the fizz in. Tested by your correspondent on a sparkler for an astonishing period of six days - and the bubbles still streamed.
16. The Best of Wine in Ireland 1998
(A&A Farmar, £9.99) Now in its third edition, the main buying guide to a goodly number of wines on the Irish market comes this year with some interesting new introductory material and a handy little pocket-sized listing for shopping expeditions.
17. Peter Lehmann Barossa Semillon 1996
(All Superquinns, Deveneys, Vintry, Cooneys Harold's Cross, Village Cellar Swords, SuperValus Killiney & Deansgrange, Higgins Clonskeagh, usually £7.99) Semillon, like Riesling, is one step ahead of the posse - a white varietal so capable of being characterful and tasty that we'll soon be crying out for more. This one sets the tone. See Bottle of the Week.
18. Screwpull Lever Model corkscrew
(From many good wine merchants and kitchenware outlets, £100-£115) You think there's a decimal point missing there, but no. This is the ne plus ultra of openers - totally, bafflingly effortless, admirably tough . . . and hence extra-expensive. Constant imbibers will get a daily thrill out of it, however. Lesser Screwpulls, also highly covetable, start at £12.95.
19. Marquis Vintage martini glass
(China Showrooms, House of Ireland, £15 for 2; also soon available from Clerys, Arnotts, McCabes, Cashs Cork, Todds Limerick, Fallers Galway and other outlets) Now that cocktails are back with a bang, the hunt is on for the vital equipment. This well-proportioned glass comes from the impressive new Vintage Tasting Collection, made in Austria for Waterford Crystal. The wine glasses are deadly, too - and very well priced at around £6. Just arriving in the shops.
20. Pewter cocktail shaker by Nick Munro
(Minima, £125) The coolest martini-maker in town is this Sixties-and-sputnik inspired beauty by one of Britain's cleverest young designers. Different enough to turn heads - like the dazzling drink itself.