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I hope you enjoyed last week's sparkling and white wine holiday gift recommendations. This week, it's time to move on to red and sweet wines. Whatever your budget, whatever the occasion, there are so many interesting wines to choose from that make great gifts. Happy shopping!

As more and more Americans enjoy wine, giving wine as a gift has also grown in popularity. As usual there is the feeling that you need to spend a lot if the wine is to be appreciated. This absolutely should not be the case! With a little thought and a sense of adventure you can find a tremendous number of interesting wines which will awaken the curiosity of even the most demanding of palate. And they won’t break the bank.

Here's a guide to affordable, interesting, and adventurous white and sparkling wines for those hard-to-please palates on your gift list.

Breathtakingly beautiful, the French wine region of the Languedoc-Roussillon stretches from the south of the Rhône Valley all across the Mediterranean coastline to the Spanish border and the Pyrennées. It is France’s largest and most diverse wine region. Red, white, rosé, sparkling and sweet wines are produced.

Such diversity can sometimes be confusing to the consumer. To help, the region has recently launched Sud de France, an umbrella brand that aims to help wine drinkers more easily recognize the wines from the region.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. As I was reading Emma’s post last Friday on Thanksgiving dinner, I started to ponder the choice of wines to serve. For some reason, picking the Thanksgiving meal wines has escalated to the scale of a difficult and daunting task. This does not have to be so. It should be an enjoyable exercise.

With so many different dishes and flavors to work with, it is easy to understand why people fret about the wine. Well don’t. You don’t have to find the perfect wine for each dish. Here are a few simple guidelines, which should help.

Today wine stores carry an almost dizzying array of wines. This is a good thing, but is easy to become confused and panic over selecting ‘the’ perfect bottle. Over the years I have put together a list of little things to check and do when in a wine store.

Since the movie Sideways in 2005, sales of Pinot Noir have skyrocketed throughout the world and especially in the United States. Unfortunately, unlike Cabernet Sauvignon, it is difficult to make high volume, inexpensive Pinot Noir that still smells and tastes like Pinot Noir.

So can you get quality at under $20 a bottle?

One of the most difficult and intimidating aspects of wine tasting for many people is having the confidence to trust their own nose and palate. What do Chardonnay or Pinot Noir smell and taste like? Some wine drinkers complain that they cannot smell anything, or in more cases, that they cannot find the right words to describe what they smell and taste.

Well, here is an interesting way to learn.

Over the past weeks every wine publication I know is debating how the wine industry is going to manage through the global financial and economic crisis that we are all facing. Who will be the winners and who will be the losers? What about wine consumers? Will we all stop drinking wine?

No, one point that everyone agrees on is that, even in recessionary times, people do not stop drinking. Rather, they adapt their drinking habits. The good news is that there are still great budget wines available for every budget and every taste. You just have to know where to look. Here are a few tips, and some favorites.

Spanish wines are truly experiencing an explosion in quality and diversity. Gone are the tired oxidized wines of yore. Much more careful handling of the fruit both in the vineyard and winery as well as more judicious use of oak is resulting in one of the most exciting wine countries to buy wines from at the moment. And at great prices!

Read on for an overview of some of the most exciting regions in Spain, and some of the best deals in delicious wine coming from their vines.

As Emily explained in her posts last week, October is National Fair Trade month in the United States. We thought we'd explore what Fair Trade means when it comes to wine, and look at what is available in the U.S. market.

While Fair Trade wine has been available in Europe since 2003, it was only in 2007 that the first Fair Trade wines became available in the United States.

Do you regularly buy bag-in-box wine? Have you ever bought bag-in-box? Would you ever buy bag-in-box?

Last week, while visiting the Rheingau, in Germany I met some Norwegians. Arne Ronald, MW, well known wine writer, and Mai Tjemsland, Wine Director for a group of Norwegian restaurants. They explained to me, that in Norway over 50% of wine sold at retail is bag-in-box (BiB). In Sweden it is estimated to be 65%, and in the United States about 20%.

German wines, Rieslings in particular, are among my absolute favorite wines so I am very excited that this week I am heading to the Rheingau wine region of Germany, with its famous Geisenheim Viticultural Research center.

For many wine consumers German wines are an enigma. Many blatantly hate the often off-dry style, associating it with cheap, unsophisticated wines. Others become terrified by the complexity of the label, which, while delivering copious bits of information, is to many daunting and incomprehensible. Here is a guide to understanding German wines and demystifying the label.

This is the fourth consecutive year that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proclaimed September as California Wine Month, to highlight and acknowledge the important contribution made by the Californian wine industry to the United States' economy, lifestyle and environment.

California produces 90% of all wine produced in America. As part of Wine Month, California Wine Institute organized the California Wine Rush Grand Tasting in New York on September 10th last week. Media, trade and consumers all made their way throughout the day to Espace, on West 42nd Street to experience the dazzling selection of wines on offer from the Golden State.

Trader Joe's - the name synonymous with 'Two Buck Chuck', the $1.99 wine from the Charles Shaw Winery in California - also carries a broad array of wines priced anywhere from $2.99 to $60, and wines from respected regions in California, France and Italy.

Having had several conversations with non-wine-geek friends about the virtues of the wine selection at TJ's, I decided to pay the store a visit and check out the wines.