The glass that you are about to pour wine into is your window in which you can accurately see your upcoming wine experience.
Wine glasses are broken down into two categories:
- The ones you have at home
- The ones you use when you are not drinking wine at home
When you are given a wine glass, or one is patiently waiting for you to pour wine into it – make sure its clean, crystal clear! Morning dew on a beautiful spring day – blue skies, wisps of cottony white clouds in the sky, running brook by your feet, undulating hills covered with fresh earth and rows of vines as far as the eye can see. That fresh and clean and crisp. Make sure the glass is room temperature and not hot.
Make sure you do not smell soap or detergent in it. I cannot tell you how many times I have sent wine glasses back, or away from me. If you smell soap or detergent in your wine glass, that tells you everything you need to know. It is a dumb, dumb light blinking brightly in your mind’s eye. Warning you.
If this happens in a restaurant, be careful. They are telling you that wine is not important to them. There are other ways to tell that too, but this is a big one. If the restaurant has a solid wine list and their glass smells like ivory soap, one of two things,
- -They will be embarrassed and quickly fix it for you
- -They look at their wine list as a source of revenue
If this happens at a friend’s house, it is more difficult to handle depending on how good a friend they are. Several options here,
- -Go and rinse the glass out yourself and dry it
- -Smell something, say something
- -Do nothing and don’t drink, and very last option,
- -Suck it up buttercup and drink from the glass. Oy.
That last option sends chills down my spine.
What wine glasses do you have at home?
Are they really clean?
As much as I do not want to say this, what you drink wine from matters. Drinking from a paper cup – not good. Ditto from a plastic cup or a shot glass. Your wine glass has to be able to provide you with a clear picture of the wine's color, its density or body. And, it has to give you access to how it smells or its “nose”.
My preference if you are going to purchase one type of wine glass, is the big “Bordeaux” style glass; big as in 20-22 ounces. Stem or stemless, dealers’ choice. The stem is there so your hand does not warm the wine up. I go back and forth on stem vs. stemless. What I do not compromise on is the size of the glass itself.
Here is where it gets interesting: The weight of the glass. You want as light as you can afford. The lighter the glass the more you focus on the wine itself. Almost as if the wine is floating in the air on its way to your face.
Apologies in advance. Pinot Noir is perhaps my most favorite grape variety. The most difficult to make good wine from, but when it is right, nothing short of magical. Several years ago I splurged on these wine glasses:
Zalto Denk’Art Burgundy glasses
32 ounce glasses that weigh several ounces. So delicate that you have to use your dishwasher to clean them. Truth – dishwasher is safer than hand washing because the stem is so fine. Several hundred uses, 100% dishwasher cleaned, and not one broken to date. These glasses are so good, I use them almost exclusively.
As much as a wine glass can change your life, these did mine.
This is a stemless glass I love too:
Riedel Wine Tumbler Cabernet/Merlot
A great glass that is also found in my wine cabinet.
In conclusion, what you drink your wine in is important.
In order to fully appreciate wine, as in all things in life, the right tools are important.
Wishes for a great day to all,
Hugs too,
David/
