Champagne and Shiraz in One Box: The Top of the Hamper Range

The Ultimate Gourmet Hamper with G.H.Mumm Champagne and Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz is $299.95, the top of our range, and the only box we pack with a champagne and a red. Send it when one bottle would not carry the occasion: a milestone, the household hosting Christmas Day, the client who carried your year.

Two bottles is not simply more wine. Champagne and shiraz sit at opposite ends of an afternoon, so a gift that holds both is really a gift of two moments: the cold glass poured while people are still arriving, and the red opened later, once the food is out and nobody is going anywhere. Most hampers ask the recipient to decide which kind of occasion they are having. The Ultimate Gourmet Hamper does not make them choose.

What arrives is two bottles, with the artisan selection packed around them. The champagne is G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge, the red-sashed non-vintage that most people recognise without being told what it is. The red is a Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz, about as unambiguously Australian as a red gets. Everything packed around the bottles is shelf stable, so nothing needs a fridge on arrival and nothing has to be eaten in the first week. At the top of the range that matters more than it sounds: a $299.95 gift with a use-by date attached puts the recipient to work in the busiest fortnight of their year.

Two bottles, two moments

The easiest way to use this hamper is to stop treating it as a wine gift and start treating it as a running order.

The champagne belongs to the first hour, while people are arriving and the kitchen is still busy. It wants to be properly cold, and it wants salt beside it rather than sugar: crackers, olives, chips. Open it before anyone asks for a drink rather than after. A bottle poured on arrival changes the temperature of a room in a way the same bottle poured at four o'clock never quite manages.

The shiraz belongs to the table, and then to the hour after the table. A Barossa shiraz carries enough weight to sit beside cold ham, a barbecued leg of lamb or a board of hard cheese, which is what an Australian Christmas lunch usually puts in front of it, and it is the bottle that survives being opened at two and finished at six.

One thing catches people out every December. Room temperature is a British measurement. In an Australian summer a red left on the bench sits well above the 18°C the phrase was coined for, and once it is that warm the alcohol arrives before the fruit does. Half an hour in the fridge door before pouring is the single change that makes a good shiraz taste like one.

If the champagne is the part that matters and the food is already covered, the G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge 2 Flute Gift Pack at $99.95 sends the same bottle with two glasses and nothing else.

What you give up on the way down

Most of our hampers sit between $60 and $150, and for most people on most lists that band is the right answer. The full ladder is in our guide to how much to spend on a Christmas hamper. Two boxes below this one carry the same Château Tanunda shiraz for less, and the cheaper of them sits back inside that band. What you are choosing between is what goes in beside the bottle.

If the two table wines are the direction you are heading, our guide to matching a glass to every layer of the Ultimate Gourmet Hamper walks that box through item by item.

When the top of the range is the right call

The bottle is part of the message. Some gifts have to be legible across a room. Someone who drinks champagne knows what a Cordon Rouge costs, and someone who does not still recognises the label. That recognition is most of what separates this box from the $199.95 one, and it is worth paying for only when the person opening it will register it.

The box has to cover a whole day. A household hosting Christmas lunch is running an event rather than receiving a present. Two bottles at two points of the afternoon is closer to what they need than ten more things to find bench space for.

There is a number attached. $299.95 sits under $300. Staff gifts under $300 each including GST and delivery, given infrequently, can fall under the FBT minor benefits exemption, and it is an all-or-nothing line rather than a tax-free allowance on the first $300. Our explainer on the $300 rule for staff gifts has the detail. General information only, and we sell hampers rather than tax advice, so check your own position with your accountant or a registered tax agent. If the box is going to a staff list rather than to one person, five or more hampers go on the bulk order form on our corporate gifting page rather than through the checkout.

Getting it there

Hampers are packed by hand at our Corio warehouse on Geelong's northern edge, and this one leaves The Gourmet Pantry in the French blue box with the gold ribbon. Add the gift card message at the checkout at no extra charge, and the parcel is tracked the whole way. At $299.95 it clears our $100 free shipping threshold, so Australia-wide delivery adds nothing to the number. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day, which makes the date you order matter more than the postcode you are sending to. Australia Post confirms its Christmas dates in October, and regional and interstate addresses always close earlier than metro ones. If it is going to a couple, put both names on the gift card.

Questions about the Ultimate Gourmet Hamper

What is in the Ultimate Gourmet Hamper with champagne and shiraz?

G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge champagne and a Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz, with our artisan savoury and sweet selection packed around them in the French blue gift box. The current contents list is on the product page, and everything beside the bottles is shelf stable, so none of it has to be dealt with on the day it lands.

Is a $299.95 hamper worth it?

It is worth it when the bottles are the point. Between $60 and $150 the extra money in a hamper buys more food and better food. Above $200 it mostly buys what is in the glass, so the honest test is whether the person opening this one will notice a Mumm and a Barossa shiraz. If they will, this is the box. If the bottles are not the point, the $149.95 Luxury Finest carries the same Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz without the champagne.

Which bottle should be opened first?

The champagne, and earlier than feels natural. It is the drink that works while people are still standing up, and it is the one that suffers if it waits. Keep the shiraz for the meal, and take half an hour off its temperature in the fridge before you pour it. Enjoy responsibly.

The Ultimate Gourmet Hamper with G.H.Mumm Champagne and Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz is $299.95 with free delivery Australia-wide. To see the rest of the top of the range beside it, champagne and sparkling wine hampers lines up every bottle we pack into a box, and the wider Christmas hampers range starts at $59.95.