I had a really dispiriting email exchange with a former business acquaintance yesterday. The exchange centred around what I perceived to be his negative reaction to my new business venture.

As I don’t like to burn any bridges  I ended our terse exchange with an assurance that I’d send him a bottle of white burgundy as I recalled it was his favourite tipple. I’ve picked out a nice one and I’m sure we will be friends again.

What a nice man I am.

This incident really got me to thinking, “What would be the ultimate bottle of wine you could send someone in the guise of a gift that,  in fact, delivers the message that you think the recipient is a complete arse?”

In my mind I couldn’t get beyond any one of the varietals in the Blossom Hill range but these were too obvious, too boring.

So I turned to twitter and was as ever inspired by the good sense offered by the mob. So in no particular order, here’s the WOTW twitter guide to the gift of crap wine

@EricavH suggest Tassenberg Wine which she helpfully advices “must only be consumed in a tin cup as you don’t want to smell what u drink!”. Take a look at this website and you’ll see what she’s getting at. A top contender

@robynslingsby and @BeckaMcMaster both  responded with Lambrini and who am I to argue with that? Go to the Lambrini website and I’m sure the irony of the following will not be lost on any of you – Visitors have to prove their age. I’ll leave that one hanging

Biggest WOTW chortle goes out to @originalian for the suggestion of “Hock from the bottom shelf of Tesco” which reminded me of my time working with an un-named supermarket who did indeed stack Hock on the bottom shelf. “You’re taking the piss” I said. “No,” the wine buyer replied “we’ve already done that, and now we’re stacking it on the bottom shelf”.

Honourable mentions to @heppy for the perennially piss poor Blue Nun and for @Ewbz for a banker – E&G’s Ruby Cabernet

And finally, this in from the Southern Hemisphere @SamKilian says “in South Africa we have what you call Pap sak… Crackling papsak… The cheapest, nastiest cr@p!!!!”.

Winemakers in France’s Languedoc region, which has suffered a reputation of being the “poor relation” to its Bordeaux and Cote Du Rhone cousins, have called their lastest product “Vin De Merde”.

Go beyond the joke and you’ll see that this is a story of despair…

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AD1IwzHE72Q]