The Effect of a Glass

Recently I received the following e-mail from Mac McCuskey who is a regular reader, residing in the U.S.. He poses some interesting questions and as the answers may be useful to readers I have posted it here.

The Question
 
Mac said, “I wonder if you have had any wine served in some German wine glasses made by Eisch. They claim that within 2 to 4 minutes the wine will open as if it had been decantered for an hour. A vendor lent us two of these glasses last week, so we decided to put them to the test.
 
We cracked a 2002 Turkey Flat Shiraz during one of our Friday afternoons sessions. I poured the wine into two Eisch glasses and two other wine glasses of similar size (one 26 oz and one 20 oz.) Five of us tried the wine in three separates sessions, alternating between the regular glass and the Eisch glasses. We all agreed, (without a doubt) that there was a big and improved difference with the wine in the Eisch glasses. To me the difference was pretty much as stated in my opening line. The wine in the Eisch glasses gave the impression of a decantered wine, “no doubt about it”.
 
Question: was it better in the Eisch glasses compared to the regular glasses. A close call, but not requiring a need for a photo  finish image. Firstly the 02 Turkey Flat Shiraz is a superb bottle of Shiraz. In the regular glasses the nose seemed like it was better than in the Eisch. Now for me that's pretty significant because my sense of smell is not what it used to be, and the flavour of the wine was all there, a bit upfront but quite delightful. In the Eisch glasses, on the palate the flavour was more subtle and actually got better the longer it stayed in the glass, leaving the wine in the regular glasses some distance behind.
 
The vendor who loaned us the glasses came in on Tuesday night and we opened a bottle of 2001 Parker Coonawarra First Growth. We repeated the process, except the regular wine glasses we used were a bit smaller.
 
Once again there was a noticeable difference in the wines. The Parker wine in the regular glasses was somewhat closed, in the Eisch it had opened up beautifully, but not quite to its full potential.
 
Bottom line: The Eisch glasses are $12 a pop, in the same range as Riedels here. If one is really into wine, and can afford to have a range of glasses, they should have a few of the Eisch glasses for when they don't have time to decanter a wine. For me its 2 out of 2.
 
Ric, at a point in time, see if you can try out these glasses and post your thoughts on your site.”
 
PS We are now looking at Eisch decanters!
 
TORB Responds: In answer to the questions raised, I will answer them in three different segments.
 
Aroma
 
The first is in relation to wine glasses in general. Very few people would disagree that the shape and size of a wine glass have a huge impact on the bouquet of the wine. The ISO glasses used in wine shows that were the industry standard have now been replaced by Riedel glasses at the Royal Sydney Show and the most prestige Australian wine show, the National Wine Show in Canberra is trialing them later this year.
 
Sometime ago, I was running short of everyday drinking glasses and was unable to purchase any Spiegelau Bordeaux glasses that I normally use and bought some other design Spiegelau Cabernet glasses. As soon as I started using these new glasses, whilst nosing wines, I was picking up aromas that were unexpected. An experiment was tried whereby I poured the same wine into one of these new glasses, the old Spiegelau Bordeaux glass and an ISO. I carried out the experiment with a number of different wines, both Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, over a period of weeks. The results were startling. Without exception, the wines’ aromas were consistent in the ISO and the Bordeaux glass, but the Cabernet glass showed characters that were not particularly attractive, and were not found in the other two glasses. That was enough for me, and I have avoided them like the plague since. If you look at the Cabernet and the Bordeaux glasses, they don't look all that different, but that subtle variation in shape can have a huge difference on the bouquet.
 
Taste
 
If you believe the marketing blurb put out by companies like Riedel, the shape of the wine glass is also important because it helps deliver the wine to the right position on the palate. This logic may be an excellent justification to help these companies sell a large range of glasses, but to my way of thinking, it is pure rubbish.
 
Sure, drinking out of classy wine glasses is aesthetically pleasing, but I cannot find any scientific justification for these claims. One can only wonder why a company like Riedel has not widely published independent scientific tests to support their claims. From my own perspective, and I have tested this, the same wine tasted from an ISO, a Riedel Shiraz glass, and a Spiegelau Cabernet Sauvignon glass, all taste exactly the same.
 
The Eisch Claims
 
The first thing I did was go to the Eisch web site to see what details were available.
 
The first thing they claim is
“New Oxygenising - Treatment
A wine poured into this glass for just two to four minutes will show signs of aeration equivalent to the same wine that has been decanted and aerated for 1 to 2 hours.”
 
An interesting claim, but what does it will mean, how do you measure it, and how do you either prove or disprove it? The
 
If for example, you take a very young big Australian Shiraz and decanted for an hour, in many cases there is certainly not going to be a huge amount of change that could be perceived by most people. On the other hand, if you take a very old wine, if you believe these claims the wine should fall apart in the glass before you get chance to enjoy it. To the best of my knowledge, currently there is no technology that would enable this claim to be scientifically proved. It may be able to be proved in a pseudoscientific test by blindfolding people.

On their web site, they then proudly boast an endorsement which reads as follows, "Robert Parker Event - First presentation of the Breathable Glass to the public at the 25th Anniversary of the Robert Parker Wine Advocat Festival at the Culinary Institute of America, California Ronn R. Wiegand Master of Wine & Master Sommelier Publisher, Restaurant Wine (said) “I was especially impressed - Remarkable! Congratulations on a real contribution to the enjoyment of wine! ”

Notice, they managed to use the Robert Parker name hoping to gain credibility by association but the reality of the situation is that all they managed to come up with was an almost inane quote by an MW who also publishes a magazine. I also wonder if these glasses are advertised in Ronn R. Wiegand’s magazine?
 
Their next claim reads, “manufacturing technology - Breathable Glasses are made from a special raw material mixture in lead-free crystal glass quality. After the actual manufacturing process, the glasses undergo an oxygenising treatment which gives the Breathable Glasses ist unique properties.”
 
Very interesting! All the first sentence tells us, in a fancy way, is that the wine is made of glass and does not contain crystal. The second sentence is the crux of the technology behind this miraculous product, the manufactured glass undergoes an “oxygenising treatment” but what the heck is that? In another part of their web site they state “The Breathable Glass has a completely natural effect – it simply strongly accelerates the reaction of the wine with the atmospheric oxygen that takes place anyway.” The reality is that any well-designed large wine glass will accelerate the absorption of oxygen over a small glass, so whilst their claim may be true, to my way of thinking it's pretty meaningless.
 
Summary
 
In summary, as far as the aroma is concerned, there is no doubt the shape and size of the glass can have a huge impact on the bouquet. If these glasses were improving the aeration and making the wine seem as though it had been decanted for an hour or two within minutes, the first place that should be noticeable would be on the bouquet. The fact that in both instances the trial wines showed better bouquet is in the non Eisch glasses, seriously makes me wonder about the validity of their claims.
 
As far as the wine tasting better, I don't believe shape the one glass to another makes any appreciable difference and as I have stated previously, to the best of my knowledge there are not even any pseudo scientific tests to support these claims. As to why during the trials Mac and his mates found the two wines tasted better from the Eisch glasses, I have no idea because once the wine is in the mouth, swirled around, and swallowed, it should make no difference, especially considering the importance of the retro nasal aspects of wine tasting.
 
In the past, there have been all sorts of “snake oil” sales pitches that have been made in relation to a wine improvement products, one of the most well-known being the use of a proprietary magnetic product which will instantaneously age wine. As we all know, there is absolutely no basis in fact to these claims, and I would put some of the claims made by this manufacturer in the same category.
 

Basically I don't believe them.

 © Ric Einstein 2007