December 17, 2003
For any wine drinker, the three most important wine chachkas are the corkscrew, the glass and the ice bucket. The glass is most important. There is a good reason for the basic traditional shape of the wine glass. Wine, by its very nature is a beverage made up of complex organic compounds including esters. It's the esters in the wine that are responsible for the aromas and bouquet of the wine.Wine grapes are very chameleon-like. The complexity of the fruit is such that the grape takes on a myriad of many different characteristics, particularly different fruits and herbs. The late winemaker, Joe Heitz, once told several of us at a wine tasting in Montecito, "This chardonnay may remind you of bananas, but you could never say that a banana reminds you of a Heitz chardonnay."
And good friend, Sherrill, Duggan, sales and marketing manager at Buttonwood Farm, provides really good amplification to the Joe Heitz comment, I think. "Nobody ever says a wine tastes like grapes."
Aroma refers to the fruit characteristic of the wine; bouquet refers to the total complexity that adds the components like barrel ageing and bottle ageing.
Therefore, the basic tulip shape of the glass is very important, because the top of the bowl allows the delicate esters and other complex compounds to develop. And a good rule follows-never fill a wine glass more than half full. Many wine drinkers like to swirl the wine in the glass. Swirling works like an old fashioned carburetor, adding oxygen to the wine. The addition of the oxygen helps liberate the delicate esters into the bowl of the glass.
Here's another good rule. Minimally, a wine glass should hold eight ounces. The bigger the better, but 20 ounces is too big, and 12-14 ounces is ideal, I think. Wine drinkers frequently like to sit around swirling the wine in the glass. If the glass is too small, swirling can be a messy proposition. If you make a mess and ruin the linen tablecloth, you won't get invited back. For one basic all-purpose glass I like Riedel's Ouverture red wine glass that holds 12 3/8 ounces.
Riedel, an Austrian crystal glass producer, makes a very good line of wine glasses that fit every budget. Riedel marketing is very good. They produce wine glass shapes for every imaginable varietal and color. They even produce a tequila glass. I have to admit good tequila really tastes good out of one of the tequila-shape glasses. Their website is riedelcrystal.com
A final note on champagne glasses. Serving champagne or sparkling wine in those old fashioned sherbet glasses is unacceptable. If a restaurant serves you in one of those abominations, refuse the quaff. At a wedding I attended recently, I opted to drink the sparkling wine out of a regular wine glass rather than a hideous sherbet glass.
Legend has it that the classic shape of the sherbet glass came from a mold of Madam Pompadour's breast. It may be a "ten" for ice cream, but not for wine! Champagne and sparkling wine should be served in flutes.
The taller and skinnier the better. Flutes show off the fine "bead" of the champagne which is just one further enhancement to the festivity of the beverage. Riedel makes nice champagne flutes. The ones I like I got at the Pottery Barn in Santa Barbara a number of years ago-always a good place for wine chachkas.
Wine lover and Santa Maria Times Wine columnist, Bob Senn, lives in the Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
