If there's one thing wine connoisseurs love doing — aside from tastings — it's talking about wine with like-minded folk. Wine Battles takes the casual chat one step further and offers the first tournament-style wine game where you can drink, socialize, rate and learn about all different kinds of wine. Based in San Diego, Wine Battles makes sipping grapes accessible and fun, allowing anyone feel like a professional sommelier among friends.
Once you sign up, Wine Battles ships you eight bottles of wine (shipped in pairs over the course of four weeks) and the winning bottle of wine is eventually hailed as the best of the eight. Each box of paired wines comes with detailed instructions, winemakers' notes, and a question-based tasting guide. The nice part is that since the company sends you the wines, you'll be tasting vintages you never would have tried before and maybe even finding new favorites. Plus, by comparing tasting opinions with your battle-mates you'll be learning more without even realizing it. Wine Battles promises that they hand select wines of various contrast so that as each week passes, you'll gain more and more knowledge that can be put to use in later company.
Once your group (or just yourself if you want to fly solo) choose the winner each week, using the "five-construct system" in the accompanying Battle Guide, you each post your scores online and vote for the wine you preferred. Everyone's score, not just those in your personal group, are tallied up and if you chose the winning wine, your scores go up. As great as winning is, it's not really what it's all about — Wine Battles is mainly about enjoying great wines from all over the world with choice company.

There are many different kinds of battles coming up that you can choose from, including a Gift a Wine Battle that costs $413.06, which would be great for any looming birthdays coming your way.