The Secret Of Wine Glasses

Choosing a wine is hard enough, even with the aid of websites or books out there to help. Choosing the right glassware to go with your wine sometimes seems much harder!The correct receptacle brings out the best in good wine. A good wine should be appreciated for its looks, its smell, and its flavour which means the eyes and nose as well as the mouth.
f you drink in a bistro or bar, the only choice you’ve usually got is “large or small”?Professor Claus J. Riedel (as in the famous glassmaker) who was the first glass designer to realise that the bouquet, taste, and finish of wines are affected by the shape and size of the wine glasses from which they are drunk.That shape will determine the intensity of aroma for different wines. Some shapes and sizes will enhance fruitiness and others will emphasize tannin. Some shapes will help to keep Champagne from going flat.
Whatever wine glasses you choose, avoid the contemporary cone-shaped variety.It’s impossible to swirl the wine and the wide rim is just wrong for appreciating the bouquet. Some say that fine lead crystal wine glasses are the only way to appreciate the aroma, colour and taste of a fine wine.Lead crystal wines glasses are beautiful, but can be expensive (unless you get them via an Internet retailer for example) but if you can afford them, they are well worth the extra.
So, do you really need dozens of different wine glasses and other specialist glasses such brandy glasses to be socially acceptable?No, not unless you want to!There are four basic shapes that are good to have in any serious wine drinker’s cupboard:
1. Good all-purpose white wine glasses should have a narrow rim and wide bowl.
2. Decent all-purpose red wine glasses should be shorter and wider than the white wine glass to allow better swirling and more surface area for air contact especially for bringing out the flavours and aromas in well-aged red wines.
3. Off-dry to sweet wines (like Piesporter, Liebfraumilch, Riesling, etc) should be served in wine glasses with a slightly flared rim. This shape guides the wine to the “sweetness” area of the palate much more quickly.
4. The classic champagne flute is the best style for sparkling wines as the long, narrow body concentrates the bubbles, intensifying the aroma and taste.

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