Wineglasses

Are you using "The Right Glass"

There is a difference. You may be shocked at how much difference there really is. Take a wine of your choosing and pour a taste into two glasses that have very different sizes and shapes. Now swirl, take a moment to smell the bouquet, sip it, and let the wine linger in your mouth for a moment. Well?

What you’ve just experienced touches on one of the many subtleties of enjoying wine. Wine tastes different in different glasses, and that is why there are traditional “Red Wine Glasses”, “White Wine Glasses” and “Champagne Glasses”. Some basic types are listed below.

Tasting Glasses have the special task of helping you analyze the wine, and recognize its various characteristics - good and bad. Tasting glasses are usually 6 to 8 ounces in capacity, but can be larger, typically taller than round, bigger at the bottom and slightly closed at the top. Tasting glasses can be used for serving ports, sweet wines and some semi-sweet wines.

White Wine Glasses, for dryer more complex white wines, are found by some to be best in the range of 14 to 20 ounces. The shape is often similar to tasting glasses but larger in size. The taller aspect of tasting glasses and white wine glasses reduces the evaporation area in relation to the size of the glass and the serving size, giving a balance of the aromas and flavors more suited to certain types of wine.

Red Wine Glasses can be recognized by their traditional “ball” shape and normally larger capacity, some exceeding 30 ounces. The ball shape allows for maximum evaporation area, and being closed at the top, contains the aromas, helping the wine reveal its best characteristics.

Serving in “The Right Glass” is easy. When you have chosen a wine to serve, have some fun and try it in different glasses, as described above, then serve using the glasses that helped bring out the best in that wine. Remember, serving sizes of 2 to 3 ounces for very sweet/dessert wines and 4 to 6 ounces for most other wines are quite acceptable regardless of the glass size. NOTE: Glasses should only be filled half full, lest there be no room to swirl and release the bouquet!

Our thanks to Austria’s Riedel (rhymes with needle) Crystal for introducing the world to the effect a glass can have on the overall enjoyment of wine.