Every book, magazine and wine tasting courses talk about the importance of wine glasses. And it’s true, you can do the exercise yourself. Just take a wine and pour about 2 ounces in a few different glasses and just smell the difference and tastes them too. I don’t think you need to go with wine glasses at $100+ USD per glass to appreciate your wine, but a nicely shaped glass with a thin wall will enhance the experience.
But what’s a nicely shaped glass? Basically anything with a narrower opening than the glass to help concentrate the aromas of the wine. Some finer wine glasses companies have perfected this to having a different shape of glass for almost each grape types but as long as you follow the basic shape, your okay. We recently the Ouverture series glasses from Riedel which we bought for about $25 USD for 4. These are the basic crystal glasses from this company. They also offer the Vinum series (with a Cabernet-Sauvignon glass going for about $35 a glass), the Vinum Extreme (about $60 per glass) and the Sommelier series (about $120 per glass). Another well renowned wine glass company is Spiegelau
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March 27th, 2006 at 15:34
I recently went to a friend’s house and he served wine in these fancy glasses that had the traditional wine glass shape, however there was no stem. Have you ever seen these, Lou? I couldn’t help wonder if these were good for wine, since the heat from your hand could change the temp of the wine quite dramatically. i usually hold the glass from the stem, how about you?
March 27th, 2006 at 17:12
Riedel has a collection of such wine glasses without a stem. The O Collection. Definetely, the heat from the hand can warm up the wine, and that’s why wine glasses should be held by the stem (or the foot but more awkward).
I fixed the Riedel link by the way.
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