Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Wine glasses

Having the right wine glasses may not be quite as important as having the right eye glasses, but it's a close second in my book. LA Times (reg. req'd) wine writer David Shaw apparently agrees:

[G]ood wine tastes better in good wineglasses — glasses with thin lips and properly shaped bowls. I know this from personal experience as well as from attending formal, blind-tasting seminars. It has been repeatedly demonstrated to me at these seminars not only that wine in, say, a glass from Riedel tastes better than wine in a clunky water tumbler but that Pinot Noir tastes better in a fine glass designed for Pinot Noir than it does in an equally fine glass designed for Cabernet.

But which glasses to buy? Here again Shaw and I are in one accord:

I began noticing several years ago ... that Riedel — which then made most of the best glasses used in most of the best restaurants — was being supplanted by a newcomer: Spiegelau. When I asked around, I found out that while most folks didn't think Spiegelau glasses were quite as attractive as Riedel's, there were two reasons for Spiegelau's inroads: Their glasses are much cheaper. Their glasses don't break as easily as Riedel's.

"It's like the difference between Ferrari and Mercedes," says Wolfgang Puck of Spago. "Ferrari may be the better car, but the Ferrari breaks a lot easier. I'll take the Mercedes."

Actually, I'd take a BMW, but that's another story entirely. A while back I picked up a set of Spiegelau's Vino Grande Burgundy wine glasses, which had been recommended by the WSJ's wine columnist. As I noted in an earlier post, I've been very happy with them and use them as an everyday glass for most red wines. Recently, however, I picked up a set of Spiegelau's Vino Grande Magnum Bordeaux glasses, which I like even better for cabernet and claret. It does seem to be true that certain glass shapes accentuate different qualities of wine. Certain shapes also release more aromatics by swirling. Spiegelau provides a very nice alternative to the price and hype of Riedel.