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Wine Glasses - Take the Riedel Challenge
Have you ever wondered why wine glasses were different than beer or liquor glasses? Maybe you’ve wondered why there are so many different kinds of wine glasses. The fact of the matter is that there’s a good reason for having all those different kinds of wine glasses. Believe it or not, wine will taste different in each one of them. Don’t take my word for it, give it a try yourself. Take the Riedel Challenge.
Riedel is an Austria based maker of fine wine glasses that are considered, by many people in the industry, to be the finest wine glasses available. Just to give you an idea of the depth of their line, the Riedel Sommelier series sports around 44 different types of glasses.
Most wine lovers know that etched wine glasses and colored wine glasses can obscure your view of the wine, but not many know that wine tastes different in different glasses. In order educate people, Riedel will put on a Riedel Challenge every once and a while. They’ll pour the same wine into a standard restaurant wine glass, a competing wine company’s glass, and a Riedel glass designed to compliment the wine being poured. Participants then taste the wine in all three glasses. The result: They swear they tasted three different wines!
How is this possible? Each wine has its own special characteristics. Take Barolo for example. A Barolo is made from the extremely tannic Nebbiolo grape. This is a big, mouth-busting red wine with a lot of alcohol. If you were to pour this big-boy wine into your usual wine glass and take a whiff, chances are your senses would be overrun by the smell of alcohol. If you smell anything at all, it will probably be something that reminds you of nail polish. Why does this happen?
The reason you’re nose is assaulted by the Barolo is because your nose is too close to the wine. In your usual glass, the Barolo’s bouquet doesn’t have enough room to fully develop. In the average glass your nose is only centimeters away from a very powerful wine and the resulting smell is not pleasant. The Riedel Company recognizes that a Barolo is strong and needs some room to develop, so a glass made for a Barolo will be long and slant inward only slightly. The slight slant prevents the wine’s bouquet from becoming too concentrated and the long glass means your nose is now inches away from the wine rather than centimeters.
What’s the result? Now instead of nail polish you smell roses, tobacco, and cherries. The wine becomes completely different. Smell is a large part of wine tasting. Your taste buds can only detect sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory. Your nose, however, can detect thousands of different aromas. By choosing the right glass for your wine you highlight the wine’s best qualities and allow the wine to reach its fullest potential.
So how many different glasses should you have? That answer depends on how many different types of wine you drink and whether or not you want specialty items like stemless wine glasses. All in all, if you drink mostly Bordeaux, then a Bordeaux glass will do you. However if your tastes include more than just a single region or varietal, then buying wine glasses can get real expensive real quick. Unless you have money to burn, I’d buy a standard wine glass for everyday drinking and a couple of specialty glasses to highlight my favorite wines. You can always buy more glasses later when you come across a really nice bottle. In the meantime, you can save your money for party items like some wine charms for your glasses.
Wine is a unique beverage in that every vineyard, every vintage, and even every bottle is distinct. The taste of wine varies and what you taste one year may change completely the next. That level of uniqueness deserves a glass that’ll allow you to experience everything your wine has to offer.
