There is, we find, a duality at Christmas, as our amply filled cups runneth over – frequently literally. It is a moment when we are both at our most childlike (ideally with awe and wonder, not fighting with siblings or throwing tantrums); and yet it is also when we feel we must demonstrate to visitors our easy aptitude for being exceptionally grown-up sophisticates.

And so the usual IKEA cutlery remains shut away while we ritually lay the table with a handed-down dinner service (or indeed, some tarnished old knives and forks from the local flea market for similar effect). Our erroneous ideas of being ‘with’ the current music is mercifully dispensed with as we amp up Carols from King’s. And nor can we fathom pouring wine – or any other festive tipple, for that matter – direct from the bottle like savages.

No, for the Christmas period, we shall be decanting everything in sight. And we shall be performing this mass decantation with the aid of this crop of dazzlingly lovely carafes. Dot a few down the Christmas table and you’re guaranteed to feel that you’ve transformed your kitchen table into a stray from the set of The Crown. These are the twenty vessels with which we recommend you get merry with panache.

By Nancy Alsop
December 2020

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