One Bottle, One Box: The Wine and Nibbles Hampers Compared

Two food line-ups run through these five hampers, and the wine is added on top. The Nibbles pair is savoury and salty. The three Gourmet Selection boxes are softer and sweeter, and one of those three goes out with no bottle at all. Work out which way the person grazes and the rest of the choice takes a minute.

Start with how they graze, not with what they drink

Everything compared here is built the same way. Two fixed food line-ups, a wine added to one of them, and the same box, ribbon and insulated shipper whichever you pick. Learn the two line-ups and the decision is made.

The Nibbles line-up is the savoury one. Nine food items, and the things that set its character are 185g of Kangaroo Island Mediterranean olives, VPC roasted peanuts, a 40g canister of Hunter’s Gourmet black truffle potato chips and two separate crackers rather than one, sea salt alongside wattleseed and fig. Its sweet end is short and deliberate: cocoa dusted Belgian truffles, caramelised cashew brittle, honey popcorn and a tube of Scottie Dog shortbread fingers. This is the box you open standing up with a drink already poured. If the truffle chips are the part that catches your eye, we wrote separately about what to serve beside them.

The Gourmet Selection line-up is softer and more European. Eight food items, and it trades the brine and the peanuts for pistachio macarons, buttermilk vanilla fudge, a fig and almond fruit pyramid and Mr Filbert’s French rosemary almonds. Its savoury side is an artisan pita box in olive oil and sea salt sitting beside the crackers. It reads as afternoon rather than evening, which is why it is the line-up under the Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz hamper, the box to send when the label is meant to be noticed.

Four bottles, and one hamper that names its grape

There are two tiers of wine across these five, and only one hamper name tells you the grape. The two Nibbles boxes carry Bay of Stones: a Shiraz in the red one, a Sauvignon Blanc in the white. The two upper boxes carry 750ml from Château Tanunda in the Barossa Valley, the Grand Barossa Shiraz in the box that says so and the Grand Barossa Chardonnay in the one listed only as White Wine & Gourmet Selection. So if you are buying for someone who drinks Sauvignon Blanc and nothing else, the white box you want here is the Nibbles one. Enjoy responsibly.

The word Nibbles travels further than these five. There is a seasonal set as well, the Christmas Nibbles hampers, on their own and with a Château Tanunda or a sparkling bottle. Those sit in the Christmas range rather than the standing line-up and appear when that range opens, so they are not in the table below.

Three things are in all five boxes

Set the five side by side and the same three items turn up in every one: an 80g bag of Kangaroo Island honey popcorn, the VPC native artisan crackers in wattleseed and fig, and a 150g box of TCE Belgian dusted truffles, the cocoa dusted ones in every box that carries a bottle. That is worth knowing before you send two hampers to the same household, because two of these can look like different gifts on the website and land looking like relatives.

The presentation is shared as well. All five arrive in the French blue box with the gold ribbon, hand packed in Corio, Victoria, and sent inside an insulated shipper. Each carries a free personalised gift card you write at checkout, and each is tracked with Australia Post.

The five, side by side

Read down the bottle column rather than the hamper names and the ladder is easy to see: no wine, then an everyday drinking bottle, then a named Barossa estate. The food moves in the opposite direction to the wine, from savoury and salty at the Nibbles end to sweet and European at the Château Tanunda end, which is the thing about these five that surprises people.

Two questions, in this order

First, how do they graze? If the honest answer is olives, peanuts and something crunchy with a drink in hand, you want the Nibbles line-up and its nine items. If it is macarons, fudge and fruit paste with coffee or after dinner, you want the Gourmet Selection line-up and its eight. The bottle will not rescue a wrong answer, because the food is the half that gets opened first and remembered after.

Then, which bottle, if any? A red drinker on the savoury side takes the Red Wine & Nibbles Hamper, where a Shiraz has something to do all evening. A white drinker on the savoury side takes the White Wine & Nibbles Hamper, the same nine items with a Sauvignon Blanc in place of the Shiraz, and brine and salt suit the white better than they suit the red. If the label is meant to do the work, it is either Château Tanunda box, red or Chardonnay, and the food underneath turns sweeter to match it. And if you do not know how they drink, or it is going to a reception desk where a bottle has to be stored, the Gourmet Selection Hamper is that eight item line-up with nothing to put away.

Questions about the wine and nibbles hampers

What is the difference between the Red Wine and Nibbles and the White Wine and Nibbles hamper?

The bottle, and only the bottle. Both boxes hold the same nine food items, from the Mediterranean olives and the sea salt crackers through to the shortbread and the cocoa dusted truffles. One comes with a Bay of Stones Shiraz, the other with a Bay of Stones Sauvignon Blanc. Choose on how the recipient drinks rather than on what is packed around it.

What wine is in the White Wine and Gourmet Selection Hamper?

A 750ml Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Chardonnay from the Barossa Valley. The hamper name says white wine rather than naming the grape, so it is worth checking before you buy for someone with a firm preference. Of the five compared here, the Sauvignon Blanc is in the White Wine & Nibbles Hamper.

Is there one without a bottle?

Yes. The Gourmet Selection Hamper is that same eight item food line-up with no wine in the box, and it is the lightest of the five to send. If alcohol has to be avoided in the food as well as in the bottle, read the label on each item when it arrives, because the pack is the authority rather than a website description, and browse the wider non-alcoholic hampers range.

Ordering, and what turns up

Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day, tracked with Australia Post, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. If the recipient only drinks one colour, the red wine hampers and the white wine hampers narrow the shelf in a click, and the rest of the season sits under Christmas hampers.