Choosing Wines Glasses for Serving Fine Wine

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Choosing a wine is difficult, but there are at least lots of guides and advisory websites or books out there to help. Choosing the right wine glasses to go with your wine sometimes seems much harder!The correct glass brings out all the right stuff in the right wine. Wine should be appreciated for its looks, its smell, and its flavour and so should be embraced by the eyes and nose as well as the mouth.
In a bistro or bar, the only choice you’re likely to be offered is “large or small”? It was Professor Claus J. Riedel (as in the famous glassmaker) who was the first glass designer to realise that the bouquet, taste, and finish of wines are affected by the shape and size of the wine glasses from which they are drunk.That shape will determine the depth of the aroma for different wines or direct wine to specific parts of the tongue.Some shapes and sizes will emphasise fruitiness while others will enhance tannin. Certain shapes will keep Champagne from going flat.
Whatever wine glasses you choose, avoid the contemporary cone-shaped variety.It’s impossible to swirl the wine and the wide rim does nothing for appreciating the bouquet. Some say that fine lead crystal wine glasses are the only way to appreciate the aroma, colour and taste of a fine wine.Lead crystal wines glasses are beautiful, but can be expensive (unless you get them via an Internet retailer for example) but if you can afford them, they are well worth the extra.
So, do you really need dozens of different wine glasses to be socially acceptable? No, of course not!But there are four basic shapes that should be in any serious wine drinker’s cupboard:
1.White wine glasses should have a wide bowl and narrow rim.
2.Decent all-purpose red wine glasses should be shorter and wider than the white wine glass to allow better swirling and more surface area for air contact – especially for bringing out the flavours and aromas in well-aged red wines.
3.Off-dry to sweet wines (like Piesporter) should be served in wine glasses with a slightly flared rim. This shape guides the wine to the “sweet” area of the palate much more quickly.
4.The classic champagne flute is the best style for sparkling wines as the long, narrow body concentrates the bubbles, intensifying the aroma and taste.