Laura hugged me at her door and her guests cheered. In March, she'd regifted my last gift.

My gift ended up behind Laura's back, a long cream box held out to the side so she wouldn't crush the bow I'd retied three times in her driveway.

“You brought something,” Laura said into my scarf. “I was scared you'd given up on us.”

She had no idea what was in the box, but I did. And the last time Laura held a gift of mine, I ended up hiding in a powder room.

My bottle went into the rack with the other nine

For twelve years, every bottle I carried into Laura's house had its ribbon tied twice. Last December, Laura's husband, Scott, took my crisp white in the hall, said, “Oh, this is great, Heather,” and carried it past their own white going warm on the counter, into the rack by the kitchen door.

Nine other bottles wore nine other bows, with tags swinging off their necks like suitcases at the airport. Mine made ten.

I never found out what counts as special. But three months later, I found out where that rack leads.

“Merry everything,” Kim read. It was March.

At Kim's fiftieth, Laura and Scott brought a bottle of white, and I knew that double knot from across the room. Before she blew out her candles, Kim turned my tag around and read it in her best Christmas-card voice. “For Laura and Scott. Merry everything! Love, H.” Then she looked up. “Who's H?”

Laura put a hand to her cheek like she had a toothache. I raised my water glass about two inches, like a kid who isn't sure of the answer.

I laughed way too loud and spent ten minutes in Kim's powder room, reading her hand soap.

Laura called the next morning, crying. I said it was fine, but for six months I showed up at her dinners hugging an empty purse like a football.

If you always bring something, you know the signs. Your bottle is down the hall before your coat is off, and weeks later you hear, “Haven't opened it yet!!”

I figured I'd been buying the wrong wine. But in April, Laura took me to coffee and pulled out a pen.

Laura drew me a bus stop on a napkin

Laura has hosted monthly dinners for twenty years. She drew a rack of bottles with a bus stop sign on top.

“Guest bottles don't live there,” she said. “They wait. We pick our dinner wine ahead, for the food, so yours goes in the rack. By March, nobody knows whose bow is whose, so when there's a birthday, we grab one and run. Every host does it.”

Then she drew a little bus pulling up. “That's Kim's fiftieth. Your bottle got on.”

That napkin became my test. Would my next gift still be in Laura's house at Christmas, and would she use it?

Three gifts I swore would never catch a bus

A nicer bottle shows you care, but Joy held mine like a newborn, said it was too nice to open and put it in her rack. For all I know, it's at a baby shower in Franklin now.

Flowers get enjoyed right away, but a week after Beth's Bible study, my peonies were upside down in her yard-waste bin.

My bourbon pecan pie got eaten, which is love, but a week later, only my pie dish was left at Pam's. Pam, I'd like it back.

But one thing showed up at every dinner at Laura's: her own white, warm by the second glass, and Laura saying, “It's fine, it's fine.” So I needed a gift she'd use every time she opened a bottle, and it took me all summer to find it.

My husband bet me it would join the fish in Laura's drawer

I'd have bet the same. Wine gadgets are the fruitcake of hostess gifts, and Laura's drawer already has a corkscrew shaped like a fish.

But this one lives in the freezer, not a drawer. It's a rod of 304 food-grade stainless steel that you slide into the open bottle, and you pour every glass through the clear spout on top, so it never leaves the bottle.

“So it's an ice cube on a stick,” Jeff said.

“Ice melts into your wine. Steel doesn't.”

“Laura's wine is warm by the second glass.”

“It keeps what you pour cold for up to three hours, because it cools from the inside out. And if her open bottle has gone warm, it's back at serving temperature in 10 to 15 minutes.”

One Tuesday, after its first hour in the freezer, I tested it on a white that had sat open all through dinner. Jeff sipped it with his apple pie. “Tastes like it rode home in a hot truck.”

I slid it in and set the oven timer for fifteen minutes. Then I poured Jeff a glass through the spout, and it aired the wine without a drip. Jeff checked the counter with his finger anyway.

Jeff rates everything out of ten, and he's never gone above a seven. That includes our wedding. He took two sips.

“The wedding lost points for the DJ,” he said, and held out his glass for more.

Lindner & Co sells it as a pair, so one moved into my freezer, and the other went into a long cream box with red satin, tied twice. For the first time since March, I wrote a tag.

See how it works →

Then Laura read my tag out loud

That's what was behind Laura's back during the hug. She walked it right past the rack, which had nine new bows, and read my tag to the table, just like Kim had.

Laura laughed so hard she grabbed a chair, and Scott said, “What bus stop?”

She put it straight into her freezer. Around eight-thirty, the white on the table had gone warm. Laura started to say, “It's fine,” and I said, “Check your freezer.”

She slid it into the bottle, and I asked Scott about his deck so I'd have somewhere else to look. If this flopped, I was the friend with the fish corkscrew. About fifteen minutes later, Laura poured a glass, took a sip and stopped mid-story.

She looked at the glass, then at me. “Okay. That's not fine. That's cold.”

At the end of the night, Scott ran it through the dishwasher and put it back in the freezer. “That one lives here now.”

Last Friday, Laura texted me a photo of it in a bottle on her table. “Used it again tonight. Every bottle, I think of you.” Three weeks in, my gift hasn't even looked at a bus.

I wasn't the only one. 4.8/5 · 370 reviews:

Works perfectly and made a popular hostess gift at a party.

Elin A.

Excellent! Gave one to a friend, and she wanted to know where to buy more!

Anonymous

If you're the friend with the bow, here's what I'd do

Get the pair. It costs about what two nice bottles do, and those never got me a hug. Keep one and test it on a warm bottle at home, then give the other to the next friend whose door you knock on. If you don't love it, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Thanksgiving is less than two months away, and the holiday parties start right after. That's a lot of doors to knock on, so I'd order this week, before one more of your bottles catches the bus.

Next time you're at a friend's door with a gift in your hands, make it the one she texts you about.

Bring the gift that gets used →

Heather

This is a dramatized story based on experiences customers have shared with us. Names and details are illustrative. The reviews above are real, unedited customer reviews.