How much do you love wine? Do you drink it every night? Do you spend all of your disposable income on big Napa Cabs or elegant Burgundies? Do you have a wine bottle tattooed on your backside? Or is that just me?

How about we flip it around and have YOU tattooed on a wine bottle. You see, there are several cool companies out there that allow you to get really personal with your wine bottles. So personal that your beautiful face can be displayed on the label or even etched into the glass. These personalized bottles make fantastic gifts. For example, you could put a picture of the kids on a label with the message “Happy Father’s Day.” Or you could use personalized wine in my favorite way – as the favor at a wedding. Lucky guests get to go home with a bottle of fine juice from Chateau de Happy Couple.

Here are two great resources for doing just that:

1) Personal Wine - At PersonalWine.com, you can pick which award-winning wine you want, from a $20 Chilean Chardonnay to a $119 Diamond Mountain Claret. Choose your design template, upload any image, and add text. You can work with one of their consultants over the phone to etch or engrave the bottle too. If you’d prefer, you can also just buy personalized wine labels themselves (20 label minimum).

2) Crushpad – You might have heard of Crushpad as a custom crush facility in Sonoma where you can create your own wine brand. That is the case, but most people don’t know that you can also use their services on a smaller scale. Instead of making a whole barrel, you can buy 10 cases of high-quality finished wine and work with their design team on custom packaging. They also have a program specific to weddings that allows the couple to blend their own wine and design their own label. The couple can serve the wine at their wedding (how cool!) and send guests home with extra bottles, to have and to hold from this day forward.

2007 Jean-Marie Arnoux Vacqueyras

The producer is Arnoux and the region is Vacqueyras.  Vacqueyras is in the Southern Rhone Valley in France very close to Chateauneuf-du-Pape.  You’ve all probably heard of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but have you heard of Vacqueyras?  Probably not.  The climate and the grapes grown are very similar to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but it doesn’t have the same brand recognition…So you can get amazing wine from Vacqueyras at affordable prices.  This bottle retails for about $15.

It’s a blend of three grapes: it’s 70% Grenache, 25% Syrah and 5% Mourvedre.  The Grenache adds warmth and candied fruit, the Syrah adds black-pepper spiciness and the Mourvedre adds structure.  The year 2007 was a fantastic year for the Southern Rhone, one of the best in the past decade.  Serve this the next time guests are coming to your house and watch what happens.  They’ll ask for more.  They’ll ask where they can get it.  And, if you tell them a bit of its story, they’ll even feel a bit more cultured.

It is a rather robust wine that can stand on its own if you’re not really serving food.  If you are serving food, I’d suggest something hearty like lamb.  I had this with lamb last Easter and it was great.

Tasting Notes: This wine is rich and opulent.  It has warm red fruit, that black pepper spiciness from the Syrah, some violets. Like velvet on your tongue.  It’s powerful and sexy.  And everybody likes a sexy wine.

So if you want to be remembered as a great host, serve 2007 Jean-Marie Arnoux Vacqueyras at your next party.

You can watch the video on the homepage or below.

Your good friend is getting married.  She’s joyous, she’s so happy, she found the perfect guy!  Life is so great!  And what do you get to do?  Plan her a big fat party.  There are so many options – you could plan a relaxing day at the spa, a whirlwind weekend in Vegas, an evening of live dancing entertainment…Either way, you should make sure you pop open lots of this:

2009 Chateau du Rouet Rosé Cuvee Tradition

There are so many things about this wine that make it the perfect choice for a bachelorette party.  First of all, it’s pink.  It’s a classic rosé from Provence in Southern France.  Rosé is a wonderful wine that harnesses the strong fruit of a red with the crisp refreshment of a white.  In France, rosé outsells white wine.  This particular rose is a blend of 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah.  So why isn’t it red?  The main difference between a red wine and a rosé is the length of time the juice is allowed to sit with the grape skins.  The longer the time, the darker the color of the wine.  So a rosé sits with the skins for only a couple of days whereas a red wine sits with the skins through fermentation.

Second reason this works for a bachelorette party – the bottle is shaped like a sultry woman!  This is actually the traditional rosé bottle shape from the late 1800’s.  Most producers have abandoned it in favor of a more modern bottle shape, but Chateau du Rouet has stuck with the hourglass shape.

Third, it’s a great value at under $15 a bottle.  You can keep the wine flowing all night to make sure the bachelorette stays happy.  You could even give every party-goer her own bottle in a gift-bag.

Tasting Notes: It has bright fresh strawberry aromas with a hint of grapefruit and white flowers.  It’s not sweet at all – very dry and focused on the palate with refreshing acidity and good minerality, kind of like wet stones.  It has a long lingering citrus finish.  This is a classic rosé from a classic region in a classic bottle.  A great find!  I can’t promise that the stripper will be classy, but at least the wine will be.