Not just a bottle

Anyone can send a bottle of wine. What makes this different from a trip to the wine shop is what comes with it: caviar, with the mother-of-pearl spoon it has to be eaten with and blinis to put it on. Everything here is something we import ourselves, chosen to suit the wine rather than picked off a list. A serious bottle. At this level the wine is most of what you are paying for, and the food beside it is there to do it justice rather than to bulk the box out.

The wine

Champagne Jacquesson Avize Champ Caïn. We buy our wine through a merchant rather than a supermarket supply chain, which is why the bottles in these gifts are grower’s wines and estate bottlings rather than own-label. If you want a different bottle at the same price, tell us when you order and we will swap it.

Who makes it

Maison du Cannes grade and tin in France – farmed, as everything legitimate sold in Europe has been since wild sturgeon came under CITES protection. You can read how the protected designations work at the European Commission.

Packing and delivery

We pack this in a 14-inch wicker hamper finished with raffia and a ribbon, the bottle wrapped and braced so it travels safely. Packed by hand in Worcestershire on the day it leaves us. We deliver across mainland UK and can send it straight to the recipient with a handwritten card and no prices anywhere in the parcel. Someone over eighteen has to sign for it. See the rest of the range on our champagne gifts page.

How to serve it

Champagne wants to be cold, in a white-wine glass rather than a flute, which is too narrow to let anything through.