Choosing the suitable wine glasses involves six points of consideration:size, shape, design, weight, material and aesthetics. The size of the glass is decided by by what variety of wine you plan to enjoy from it. In general red wine glasses are of a larger size than white wine glasses, and those meant for top quality wines are larger than the ones utilized for more pedestrain wines.
Personally speaking, I use a 17 oz.(480 ml.) capacity glass for regular red wines, and a 12 2/3 oz. (360 ml.) one for whites. If I’m serving Bordeaux, and other tannic, full-bodied, top quality reds, I use a 23 oz. (650 ml.) glass that was designed with Bordeaux particularly in mind. I naturally don’t fill my Bordeaux, or any other wine glass, to the brim. After all, considering that a common wine bottle only holds 750 ml. of wine, there wouldn’t be much remaining for anyone else to drink if I did, and for a differentreason, both the large size of the glass and the fact that it’s widest at its midway point let the wine to “breathe” by affording a wide surface area of wine to be in contact with the air in order to promote oxidation. Oxidation helps to soften the tannins of a powerful red which might otherwise be overly harsh, and lets you more fully experience the complexity and various flavors existing in a noble red.
White wine, on the other hand, has far fewer tannins, and usually will not benefit from oxidation. A smaller glass is also better for whites due to the fact they are served below room temperature. Certainly, it normally requires a longer time to drink a greater amount of wine, and you want to drink up each glass of white wine before it has a has a opportunity to get overly warm. One white wine which is an exception to these rules is the best white Burgundy, like Chablis or Montrachet. These high quality whites do gain from oxidation, and should be served at the temperature of standard red wines, from 55 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on the quality level, I typically serve white Burgundy, and other top quality Chardonnays, in 14 4/5 oz. (420 ml.) glasses or my 17 oz. red wine glasses.
The largest glasses are generally reserved for high-quality Burgundy. I use 26 1/2 oz. (750 ml.) glasses, but there are Burgundy glasses as big as 31 3/4 oz. (900 ml). But a discussion of Burgundy glasses in fact delivers us more into the realm of shape than size. Burgundy is a rather fragile and extremely aromatic red. Like Bordeaux, Burgundy is normally consumed from glasses developed with it specifically in mind. The glasses are balloon shaped: really wide in the middle, but tapering up to a comparatively narrow opening at the rim. The large middle creates sufficient surface area for the bouquet to waft up from, whilst the narrow top retains the fantastic Burgundy bouquet in the glass, preventing it from dissipating so that you may enjoy it fully.
Another sort of uniquely shaped wine glass is the champagne flute. These champagne glasses have slim, tall bowls to decrease the chance of their bubbles dissipating too quickly. Tulip shaped Champagne flutes are preferable to straight-sided or trumpet-shaped versions because, as with most wine glasses, the narrower mouth serves to concentrate the bouquet within the glass. Speaking of shape in general, I like diamond-shaped glasses. They look attractive , and a benefit of the diamond design is that it makes it easy to see where the widest point of the glass is, which is also the point to which a wine glass ought to be filled.
As far as design goes, traditional, long-stemmed glasses are surely preferable to stemless glasses. The stem serves several critical functions. To begin with, by suspending the bowl up off the table, it lets you see the coloration of the wine. Second, it tends to make it easier to swirl the wine in the glass to aerate it and get an insight into the degree of body the wine has as it drips back down the sides of the glass. Thirdly, it is a handy handle that stops your hand warming up the wine, and your fingers smudging up the glass.
Weight and balance are also important to consider because you want a glass that feels good in your hand. This is a highly subjective area, but I myself don’t like heavy wine glasses, so I prefer ones made with thin glass. A thin rim is also nicer to sip from. There is a disadvantage to thin glass however, that can cause inconvenience and added expense: it chips and breaks easily. A way to avoid this problem is to buy glasses reinforced with titanium instead of lead. Titanium wine glasses are not only a lot more durable than their leaded counterparts, they are also lighter in weight and maintain their clarity far better.
As for material, you certainly should go with high-quality Austrian or German crystal. That’s seriously not as expensive as it sounds. You can get beautiful, tasteful, machine-made crystal from big name makers at affordable prices, in particular if you shop around on the Internet. Of course, their top of the line hand blown glasses have a tendency to be really pricey, but you don’t have to break the bank when you can get very nice glasses for significantly less, including the titanium ones.
Which brings us finally to aesthetics, the most subjective area of all. It’s an essential one though simply because, in the end, the complete purpose of good wine glasses is to act as an classy foil for whichever wine you happen to be drinking so aesthetics is every bit as big a consideration as functionality. In essence, I’d say determine how much you wish to shell out for wine glasses and get the ones that you believe are the most beautiful among the ones that fall within your budget.
You can, if you’re so inclined, buy a distinct size and shape of glass for each famous kind of wine, but that’s overkill, IMO. I can’t see any reason to buy a special glass for Syrah, for instance. If you’re pouring a very high quality Syrah, such as a Hermitage or Penfolds Grange, it’s best to serve it in Bordeaux glasses. If it’s a more everyday version of this well-liked varietal, you can just use regular red wine glasses. The same goes for other powerful, full-bodied reds. In the case of a very good Pinot Noir, you had best use Burgundy glasses because Burgundy itself is made from Pinot Noir grapes. If you’re having a more everyday Pinot Noir, regular red wine glasses are a better choice due to the fact that the high-capacity Burgundy glasses will just make the wine’s ordinariness more noticeable.
In my opinion, a full set of wine glasses should include normal red wine glasses (that can also be employed as water goblets), Bordeaux glasses, Burgundy glasses, white wine glasses, (for Chablis and other of the best white Burgundies, you can use red wine or Bordeaux glasses), and champagne glasses. You may want to add a few specialty glasses to that list if you are a Brandy drinker or often serve dessert wines, but otherwise, you ought to be prepared for any contingency with these five types of wine glasses.
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