How to creatively giftwrap a wine bottle

Giving wines is a no-brainer gift for men, corporate clients and even for a wedding’s principal sponsors.  Being so common, it now becomes a challenge how to wrap so it will still look special.

After all, its not just about the gift, its everything that comes with it.  How it is presented and the feeling you want to convey.  But giftwrapping wine bottles can be a bit tricky because:

• it’s so common, that it takes a bit more effort to make it special
• the shape is so easily identifiable and
• irregular

Given this, some don’t even bother to properly wrap it and the gift becomes very ordinary to say the least.  Others are stumped, can’t decide whether to conceal it or not, and resort to some very unglamorous giftwrapping with ordinary giftwrap paper.  Other conventional ways of “wrapping” wine bottles make use of:

• wine boxes
• wine baskets
• pouches
• or just adding a ribbon or some trim

My take?  It depends, if the gift is not just the gift but a representation of an emotion, then yes, I make it as much of a surprise as I can.  For example, if I decide to give a bottle of wine to remind a female friend of the fun times we used to have when we were single and if it’s supposed to be a little secret, then I would hide the bottle to make it more of a surprise!

But having no such story for your gift calls for some creative ways of packaging wine bottles:

• create a gift basket – show your elegant taste by pairing the wine cheese or fruits on a cheese plate or board with matching cheese knife
• repurpose something as mundane that has some meaning to the recipient -my sister’s very creative mother-in-law once had mini-golfbags made for their golfing buddies to package their Christmas wine gifts
• have custom-made wine crates – this gives an air of sophistication, something you may want for corporate clients
• pack it in a wine rack – which the recipient can also use, just make sure that if conforms to their taste otherwise its not going to be very useful

Nice… but a bit expensive I know.  So here’s one other way that is just as creative but not as expensive.

Giftwrap wine bottles using scarves, shawls, decorative pillowcases, or any useful, decorative cloth material.  It would be best if it represents something of you, your event, or the recipient.  For example, for Christmas, you may find it interesting to wrap wine bottles in inexpensive Christmas tree skirts.

Here's an idea on how to bring some local flavor and character to common gifts. This is still missing a very nice trim since I made this here in Manila and the couple were just supposed to stick the trim on the rafia ribbon. I hope to get some samples of that to show you later.

Here’s something we did for the wedding of my brother-in-law in Cotabato.  His bride comes from that province and I asked her to send some scarves from the region.  It just needs to be at least 24″ square for this to work.  Then some simple twists and turns and we were able to package it with functionality, some character, her color motif, and most significantly, imbue it with heritage.

Isn’t that little effort worth it?  Don’t let the common stay so common, let your personality shine through.

Make the quaint things count,

Theresa