It is certainly already quite common to receive fruit baskets or flowers as gifts from business partners or potential partners, but wine gifts in business is a new spin on the old gift-giving routine.  It’s customary for potential partners to send each other gifts as a thank-you and as expressing interest in becoming partners, but traditionally these gifts have been limited to non-alcoholic foods and plants and flowers.  Business wine gifts are the new, cosmopolitan way of forging and maintaining, business partnerships.

Is It Appropriate?

Some business people think that it is inappropriate to involve alcohol in the business world.  This view is evident when comparing American business lunches to European ones.  An American business lunch seldom involves alcohol, whether in the harder form or in the form of wine, whereas European business lunches are treated similarly to American business dinners.  On another plane from business lunches, dinners sometimes include alcohol.  Similar to this lunch/dinner distinction, many American businesses have refrained from sending wine as a business gift in light of the traditional American stance that alcohol has no place in the workplace.

However, as times change and as businesses become more and more personal as freelancers and corporations alike become more personal with each other, business gifts of wine are taking on a more and more common place in the business world.  In addition, the cosmopolitan or city view of business is beginning to spread to smaller towns and cities, and surely, these traditional ‘no-alcohol’ views are loosening as city values spread.  Of course, it would still be inappropriate to send a bottle of whiskey to a business partner, but a bottle of wine as a business gift is becoming the ‘chic’ way to enhance business relations.

When an important deal between two companies is signed, it implies that you will have cooperation with each other on very serious matters or over a long period of time. In that case, a bottle of champagne might be sent as a celebratory gesture; what might follow is an invitation to come share the champagne together. As such, it’s no surprise that wine gifts in business can strengthen and solidify budding business relationships. 

However, if you are still unsure of whether wine is an appropriate business gift, try it out some time.  You just might be pleasantly surprised by the warm reaction that you get from the other person or from the solid foundation that the gift helps to build.