How to Buy Wine Glasses

My sister recently asked me how to buy a set of wine glasses that would actually make the wine taste better.  I thought other people might benefit from this advice as well, so here you go.  If you don't care about the history and the science, then skip down to "What to Buy."  (Although if you care enough to buy nice glasses, shouldn't you care why?)

History

The idea of having different shapes of glass for different types of wine was invented by Claus Riedel in 1961.  Prior to that, people pretty much just drank out of goblets.  Riedel is still one of the most famous wine glass makers in the world; Yelena & I drink all our nice wines out of Riedel glasses.

Science

It turns out there's real science behind it.  When you let a wine "breathe," you're allowing the alcohol from the wine to dissipate in the air.  This makes the flavor more mellow, and lets some of the more subtle flavors to shine through.  Personally, I like my wines "sharp and punchy," so I don't usually let the wine breathe too much, but most people do.  

Wide Bowl

For a bottle of strong red, like Cabernet Sauvingon, you can let the bottle air out all night.  You can even put it in a decanter, which spreads the wine out in a very wide, shallow container.  Why does a large, shallow container help?  Because you're maximizing the surface area, which maximizes the rate at which the alcohol evaporates.  

The same principle applies to the wine glass itself.  Part of Riedel's magic is that the glasses are much wider.  You shouldn't try to fill the glass all the way up; you want to pour to the widest part of the glass, which is usually about 1/3 full.  This gives the wine the best chance to evaporate the alcohol, even in the glass.

You can test this yourself: pour yourself a glass of wine, take a sip, wait half an hour, take another sip.  You'll notice that the taste has changed, right there in the glass.  I know, this is a difficult experiment to perform!

Narrow Rim

A good wine glass will have a wide bowl, but narrow rim.  As the alcohol evaporates, flavor molecules also evaporate.  Wine snobs like me call this the "nose."  (I like this term because I think big noses are a thing to be celebrated.)  A wide bowl maximizes the amount of scent that evaporates into the air, but a narrow rim will keep it trapped in the glass.  

For me, the nose is half the fun of a glass of wine.  Although most of your taste is governed by scent, the nose of a wine is often different from the taste.  The purpose of drinking good wine is to enjoy the sensuous experience of taste and smell.  Try to find all the subtle flavors hidden in the wine.  Someone spent a lot of effort making the wine this way, and you should appreciate their art.

Here's another experiment: pour a glass of wine, take a sip.  Now put your hand over the top, and swirl vigorously.  Really vigorously.  Now breathe in the aroma.  Now take a sip.  Cool, huh?  A narrow rim will help accentuate the nose.

Why Stemless is Bad

A new fad is making wine glasses with no stem.  It's cool and hip.  Like torn jeans, it shows that you don't care about society's norms.  You're a rebel who plays by his own rules.

Ah yes, but there's a reason wine glasses have stems.  White wines should be served chilled.  If you're grabbing onto that glass with your big, meaty hands, you're just warming the wine right up again.

Sure, that logic doesn't work with red wines which should be served at room temperature anyway.  But it's still stupid.

What about Champagne?

First of all, under international law, "champagne" is only grown in the region of Champagne, France.  Everything else is "sparkling white wine," although some labels say "Méthod Champagnoise" - "Champagne method."

"But I see lots of American wines that say champagne on the label."  That's because these rules were formalized in 1919 - during American prohibition.  When America started making wine again, we labeled wines based on the type of grape, not the region in which they were grown.

That's not completely true, of course.  There are a few limited "appellations" that are controlled by US law.  Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, and various regions inside Napa, like Rutherford and Stag's Leap, are all controlled appellations inside the United States.

Back to champagne.  Champagne (oû méthod Champaignoise, si vouz preferez) has nitrogen trapped inside the wine, which makes it bubbly.  If you increase surface area, you're increasing the rate at which the nitrogen escapes, which makes the champagne flat.  The solution: make the surface area as small as possible, to reduce evaporation.  This is the opposite of every other type of wine in existence.

The result: with champagne, you actually want tall, narrow glasses.  And please God put a stem on it.

Making Friends with Your Tongue

A new theory is that the glass can affect where the wine lands in your mouth.  Different parts of your tongue have different taste buds, which will react differently to different wines.  A white chardonay is sweet, and your sweet taste buds are at the tip of your tongue.  A red cabernet sauvingon is more bitter, and the bitter taste buds are at the back of your tongue.  So, Riedel has tried to engineer glasses that will deliver different wines to different parts of your mouth.

I think this is nonsense because if you're truly appreciating the wine, you're going to swirl it around anyway.  Besides, Riedel doesn't know my personal mouth.  I mean God, I hope not.

What to Buy

All right, enough with the science.  Here's my recommendation.

My favorite glass is the Riedel Vinum Extreme.  Ten years ago this was top-notch.  They have a full line of red glasses, white glasses, and champagne.  While most wine glasses have graceful curves, the vinum extreme has a sharp angular curve in the middle of the bowl.  This significantly increases the surface area, and gives the glass a very cool, distinctive look.  Riedel has come out with different lines since then, but my favorite is still the Vinum Extreme.  You can get them for $60 for a pair from Amazon or Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Expensive, I know, but in my opinion worth it.  At least to get a couple for yourself and your significant other.

Riedel has other lines, too.  You can get a pair of Riedel Vivant glasses for $20 at Target.  Much easier on the wallet, and I'm sure the quality is still very high.

Another trick to stretch your dollar: you don't have to get every single shape.  It matters most for the reds.  Yelena & I only got the bordeaux glasses because we usually drink reds.  (Cabernet sauvingon is a bordeaux grape.  Most of the other varietals I drink are, too.)  Buying a single set of glasses is MUCH cheaper than buying the entire line.  And like I said before, if you're really on a budget, just buy a couple really nice glasses for you and your significant other, and keep the "less nice" glasses for when friends come over.

Just please, don't get that stemless bullshit.

Fun experiment: after purchasing your fine glasses, pour a bottle of wine.  Make it cheap wine.  Pour into your old, crummy glasses, and also pour into your nice, new glasses.  Taste from the old glass, then taste the same wine from your new glass.  Pat yourself on the back for buying a glass that makes your wine taste much, much better.  Yelena & I performed this experiment with a bottle of Smoking Loon.  The wine was terrible - I'd never buy it again - but in the Riedel glasses it tasted not too bad.

What Kind of Wine to Put in Your Glass

Here's a dirty little secret: Most wines are overpriced.  I don't just mean "expensive;" overpriced means "not worth what you pay for them."  Most $20 bottles I've had were worth maybe $12.  I've had $100 bottles that were worth $12.

Now, that's not always true.  I had a $110 bottle of Stag's Leap cabernet that was worth every penny.  I cracked that bottle with my family when I passed the bar exam.  We paired it with kosher steaks and we drank the wine out of Riedel Vinum Extreme glasses.  I will remember that triumphant dinner for the rest of my life.

That being said, the supermarket wine market is usually a rip-off.  But there's a solution.

The easiest solution is Trader Joe's.  I've found that they have really good wines for under $5, and excellent wines for under $10.  Honestly, I can't remember the time I spent more than $10 on a bottle of wine, and I ONLY drink the good stuff.  If you don't have a Trader Joe's nearby, find a small, local wine shop.  They always have bargain wines, and they're not going to sell you crap.  In San Diego you have the San Diego Wine Company.  I've had several memorable nights thanks to that place.  In San Francisco, you have Val De Cole Wines & Spirits in Cole Valley.  (You also have two Trader Joe's.)

A better solution is know your varietals.  I like full-bodied, complex reds with lots of tannin.  I often find cabernet sauvingon to be boring, and I ignore merlot and pinot noir.  So I drink rarer varietals like sangiovese, malbec, carmenere, and lately I've been flirting with rioja.  If you like softer wines, ignore the chardonay and sauvingon blanc because oh my God, how boring can you get?  "Oh, this chardonay tastes buttery."  Like every other chardonay you've ever had in your entire life.  Try a white riesling, gewürztraminer, or white rioja.

To be fair, there is such a thing as a good chardonay, and even a good merlot.  But wine should be an adventure, and you're not going to get an adventure by buying a $6 bottle of merlot from Safeway.  I would quite literally rather drink water.

What if you don't know what varietals you like?  Experiment!  That's how I discovered most of what I like.  At $5 a bottle, you're not losing much, and in a really nice glass it will probably taste pretty good anyway.  And once you've figured out which varietals you like, there are always different wineries and different regions of the world.  How is an Australian cabernet sauvignon different from a French cabernet sauvignon?

Maybe you should go find out.