Never leave home without it

And I don’t mean “The Card” but I do mean “glasses” and I am not referring to reading or sunglasses either.

If you doubt the importance of glasses, next time you open a bottle of good wine grab your current favourite wine glass and a clean jam, peanut butter or vegemite type glass. Pour a bit of wine into both glasses. Take a sip from the vegemite type glass and then taste the wine from your favourite glass. The results will speak volumes and prove to you how glasses can impact your perceived taste of the wine, and even more importantly, your enjoyment of the wine.

So why are glasses so important and how do they work to maximise your drinking experience and enjoyment. The single biggest reason is smell. Ever tried to nose a wine from a “boob measurer” in a restaurant? Almost impossible to have any chance of obtaining much in the way of what the wines bouquet is all about from one of those little suckers. On the other hand, the correctly shaped glass (essentially a tulip shape), allows you analyse what the wine smells like and even how it’s likely to taste.

The correctly shaped glass allows you to swirl the wine and this does a number of things. Firstly, it helps get air into the wine and aids in the wine breathing. Next, as you are swirling it, a thin layer of wine is spread across a large surface area of glass, which allows the volatile molecules to escape. It’s these volatile molecules that contain the various scents that you detect when nosing a wine. The shape helps to concentrate the scents as they are escaping.

The next reason is that (in theory if you listen to the marketing blurb) the way the wine is delivered onto the palate is also of great importance. To some extent that’s true as illustrated in the vegemite glass versus you favourite glass scenario outlined above. For example the thickness, or in reality, the thinness of the rim is very important in how and where the wine ends up on your tongue.

Now for those of you that don’t have the necessary bucks to buy the Riedels or missed out on Bert’s great offer, there are two possible solutions. There are Riedel look-a-likes available for a lot less dollars than the real thing, and most people wont know the difference. Alternatively the ISO glasses are dirt-cheap and work really well. These are the glasses found in most winery cellar doors and used in wine competitions.

Finally a couple of comments. Firstly doctors say that two glasses of wine per day is actually good for your health, so those people with the Riedel Shiraz glasses can happily drink two glasses a day and not lie to their doctor when quizzed about their drinking habits. Secondly, it’s easy to convert an aluminium camera case to hold four Riedel Shiraz glasses so you can take them with you to restaurants. Obsession? No way, perfectly normal behaviour for a wine lover who wants to get the maximum enjoyment from their wine. As I said at the start of this, “never leave home without it.”

Cheers