Drinking Glasses

[Jason Perlow x]

On another food board recently there was some discussion about the best wine glasses to buy... some of my friends have told me Speigelau is probably the best bang for the buck, but some people swear by Riedel.

Whats been your experience with wine glasses? Personally I use the crystal that my wife picked out at Fortunoff, which is really nice but might be too impractical for daily use. I also want something that will double for brandy and port if possible.

[Fat Guy x]

It's possible to get pretty crazy about stemware and other wine apparatus. I have a friend who has no less than ten distinct shapes of Riedel stems (in sets of 16, I should add) and he often gripes that if he just had one more a particular wine would taste even better (I think there are more than 30 shapes in the Sommelier series -- that's the best of the Riedel lines -- alone). And for most of history people enjoyed fine wine just fine without so many specialized glasses.

Still, if you're going to spend considerable sums of money on wine it makes sense to take reasonable steps to get the most out of that wine. This includes not only using good and appropriate stemware (and cleaning it properly -- my major pet peeve about how most of my friends handle their stemware) but also serving wine at the right temperature, and before that storing it properly and decanting if necessary.

I've participated in tastings where the same wine was served in four different glasses and it did indeed display different characteristics in each. I wouldn't say it tasted like four different wines, but there are certainly better and worse glasses for any given wine.

Whatever kind of wine glasses you get, modern wine thinking (with which I agree) holds that they should be 1) plain, 2) colorless, 3) tulip-shaped, 4) thin lipped, and 5) crystal. The basic reasons are 1&2) a glass with facets or etchings, or a colored glass, stifles the visual appreciation of wine, 3) the tulip (a/k/a egg) shape, meaning that the glass widens into a bowl at the stem and then tapers back inwards towards the lip, serves to concentrate and collect a wine's bouquet, which is the most important element of perceiving wine's subtleties, 4) a thin, smooth lip creates a narrow stream of wine that hits the most sensitive areas of the tongue (really), 5) crystal in addition to being aesthetically preferable to glass has a rougher surface than glass and therefore helps wine release its aromas as you swirl and sip (this is all at the microscopic level -- of course crystal appears perfectly smooth to the naked eye).

Me, I get by primarily with two sets of Spiegelau glasses -- the Bordeaux and Burgundy (from the largest sized series) -- which are incredibly cheap (maybe ů per stem) given their quality. (I'm seeing mostly these in the best restaurants. The Riedel Sommeliers are too expensive and fragile for restaurant use and the lower level Riedels aren't as good as Spiegelau.) I use the Bordeaux glasses (the smaller of the two) for white wines too. Traditional thinking is that the white wine glass should be small, in order to prevent the rapid warming that would occur in a vessel with more surface area. But I think a lot of people are beginning to think that the larger glasses allow for better appreciation of the wine. As long as you hold the glass by the stem instead of cupping it in your hand (another pet peeve, though there are exceptions like brandy which are supposed to be warmed in the hand which is why brandy snifters have only vestigial stems) the wine won't get too warm too quickly.

I've got some other glasses around too. The "Paris goblet" which is your basic almost-spherical wine glass, works well enough for almost any wine. If I have a party (which I do maybe twice a decade), I put those out because it's silly to use massive connoisseur stems in a walking-around-and-sipping environment (though, ironically, my Paris goblets are significantly more expensive than my Spiegelaus, probably by a factor of 10, because they're Baccarat Perfection -- wedding gift). I have some of the traditional small white wine glasses that I find work very well as dessert wine glasses. There are glasses here and there taking up space in my cabinet that I bought in various misguided efforts to build a collection -- I never use them and really should get rid of most. A few Champagne flutes round out the inventory at the Shaw/Shapiro household. For good Champagne, though, I like to use the small white wine glasses. Flutes don't do much for the bouquet. I should probably get some brandy snifters but I don't drink enough brandy for that to be a priority. For the occasional digestif a regular glass is fine.

Unfortunately, many of us didn't know as much about wine when we got married as we do now, and we picked our wedding patterns for appearance rather than oenological enjoyment. But given how cheap the Spiegelaus are, it's an easy problem to correct. One warning, though: Big stems take up more cabinet space than you can easily imagine. It's hard even to find a shelf tall enough.

(Edited by Fat Guy at 2:45 am on July 22, 2001)

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Steven A. Shaw

www.fat-guy.com

[Michelle Ng x]

Fat Guy what do you think of the INAO style tasting glass? As it is designed for professional tastings wouldn't it be the best glass for a range of wine?

[Fat Guy x]

Michelle I specifically would recommend against the INAO glass as an all-purpose glass. I have two sets of them that I use for the occasional tasting that I host, but remember there is a huge difference between the goal of a tasting and the goal of drinking for pleasure. To oversimplify, a tasting glass is designed to bring out the flaws in a wine, and to subject it to the most rigorous scrutiny. A glass designed for pleasure-drinking minimizes a wine's flaws and enhances its good qualities. The INAO glasses are, also, way too small. They do pinch-hit nicely for dessert wines, though.

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Steven A. Shaw

www.fat-guy.com

[Michelle Ng x]

Any suggestions for where to buy Spiegelau?

[Fat Guy x]

I bought mine at Morrell in Rockefeller Center. I didn't bargain-hunt all that aggressively, because Morrell's prices seemed fair and I couldn't imagine saving more than a dollar or so a stem if I'd searched for days for the deepest discount. I know it's possible to get lower prices from some of the big mail-order houses, but shipping charges may cancel out the savings -- not to mention there's a risk of damage. So for anybody living in a major metropolitan area, or even a smaller town that happens to have a well-stocked wine shop, I'd say just buy locally. Othewise, for those who have to go the mail-order route, try K&L, which sells boxes of six stems for Ů.99 per.

(Edited by Fat Guy at 5:20 pm on July 22, 2001)

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Steven A. Shaw

www.fat-guy.com

[Roger Lee x]

Although the Spiegelaus are good glasses and cheaper than the Riedel, I prefer the Riedels. I find the Riedels to be more graceful in appearance and there is a wider selection of shapes. Most of my glasses are from the Vinum series and they include the Bordeaux, Burgundy, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Rheingau, Champagne and Everyday (gourmet). The one Sommelier series glass that I highly recommend is the Montrachet (Mature Burgundy) glass. Prices for Riedel have come down considerably under competitive pressure from Spiegelau they are currently at about ป-ฝ a stem for Vinum and อ-฻ a stem for Sommeliers with most of them around ะ. Look at http://www.brownderby.com/ and http://www.winex.com/, but be sure to find out about the shipping and handling charges as they can be quite substantial.

[Fat Guy x]

Riedel definitely has a more extensive selection of shapes in the Sommelier series, but if I'm not mistaken you can get Spiegelau Vino Grande in a similar number of shapes to Vinum -- approximately 20 choices in each series not including the non-wine glasses (Spiegelau also makes matching barware). The Spiegelau and Riedel sites give the exact specifications of the product lines. I'd also agree readily that Sommeliers, at four to six times the cost of Spiegelau, are more attractive, but I'm not sure I'd agree about that with respect to the Vinum series (at twice the cost). I suppose a potential buyer should examine the two up close or at least look at the Web site photos.

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Steven A. Shaw

www.fat-guy.com

[PastryChef x]

Vinums are clunkers compared to Spiegelaus. Most wine pros I know uses Spiegelau for home use. Know a few with Sommeliers but none with Vinums.

INAO tasting glasses are more versatile than you think, Shaw. Work well for all whites, desserts, spirits, and some reds. Only thing they really torture is Burgundy. Great for everyday use, picnic use, dishwasher, small enough to store lots of them, only about Ū.50 each if you get them in the right place.

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Chris

[Roger Lee x]

Hmm. It appears that Spiegelau now makes many more shapes than I recalled. I guess I'm still hearkening back to Spiegelau's first generation Riedel knock-offs which had a distinct clunkiness in the stem and foot.

[Benedict Jenks]

Does anyone know where you can get Spiegelau glasses in London?  I'd look to look at and feel them - you can't do that with a brochure or on the internet.

[Fat Guy]

Benedict, I would suggest you e-mail Spiegelau at mail@spiegelau.com or try to contact the UK distributor, which I believe is in Stafforshire. Search for UK merchants on the spiegelau.com Web site and you'll find the phone number.

I'll also try to get the attention of some of the UK board regulars.

[Wilfrid]

Any tips for cleaning all that fancy stemware?  The dishwasher makes them look nice, but causes casualties.  Handwashing means it's hard to get them really clean - or maybe I'm not trying hard enough.

For every day use, I have to admit I resort to clear, sturdy glasses which can stand some rough treatment.

[Fat Guy]

I'll answer this on a new thread.

[=Mark]

After years of long and careful experimentation I have found the perfect

method for enjoying everything from fine wine to acid plonk.  May I present

the stainless steel dog dish and a plastic eyedropper!  The dog dish.  Give

it a gentle tap and it rings.  Raise it, and feel the heft and solidity.  No

more shattered glass with severed veins and poked out eyes when you've had a

box or two too many.  Almost untippable.  No deadly lead leeching into your

vintage Mad Dog from sissy lead crystal.  Each dog dish is stamped out with

the precision that only fine Chinese robotic equipment is capable of.  Who

are you going to trust, a machine, or some lederhosen clad foreign wino who

apprenticed by blowing into breathalyzers on the side of the road?  The dog

dish's unique design creates an exceptionally wide evaporation surface that

helps to intensify a wine's bouquet and enhance a silky taste in the mouth.

To further intensify this effect, the optional baseball cap may be utilized,

although this does require that it be turned in the unnatural position with

the brim in front.  With enough wine, however, this starts to feel almost

natural.  The eyedropper, plastic for safety, is the final component in this

system to enhance the bouquet, taste, balance, and finish of every wine you

swill.  Are you going to trust a stupid glass to be responsible for the flow

of the wine, and consequently where it touches the various taste zones of

the tongue?  Yeah, right!  I personally have witnessed, on numerous

occasions, a cranky glass deliberately toss the wine through the mouth and

up the nose of someone who was innocently enjoying a joke!  With the

eyedropper, the initial contact point, and the order of those following it,

depends only on the sobriety of the imbiber.  To further enhance the safety

of the eyedropper, I suggest tying it securely to a large soft object.  A

rubber dog bone completes the ensemble.  Wine is composed of a balance and

harmony of different elements: fruit, acidity, minerals, tannin, and

alcohol.  It is solely the quantity that is chugged that makes these anal

and persnickety details irrelevant, not the mythical qualities of some

overpriced, jumped up jelly jar.  For the price of a single Riedel glass,

you can be the proud owner of service for 12.  So twist off the cap of that

Thunderbird and throw a party!

[Lily]

Mark,

Did one of your friends start the "Friend Raised by Wild Animals" thread on the Not About Food board at chowhound.com?  LMAO