Did you know that the glass you drink your wine from can actually change the way that wine tastes? It is true!! Don't go through the effort to buy delicious wines and then skimp on what you drink them from! With a few tips, you can be on your way to wine drinking bliss.
To help you understand what kind of wine glasses to keep - there are a few things I think about: 1st - Does the material like crystal or glass make a difference? And 2nd - Does the shape matter?
When it comes to crystal glasses versus regular glass or plastic - my answer is a definite, "Yes it matters!" You may never have thought about this before but try it sometime - taste a wine from a plastic cup, a water glass and then a crystal wine glass. Or you could even try wine from a can, like this video I did.
In my opinion, you will absolutely taste a difference.
What I look for is to taste the wine not the cup and when you have a thick glass or plastic, I find that I taste that material on my tongue first and then the wine gets kind of muted. The cool thing about crystal is that it can be so thin that you really just get the flavor of the wine. Making sense?
Now - the 2nd consideration of whether all the special shapes of these wine glasses matter. This is more complex. I went to a Riedel glass seminar where we tasted the same wine in 8 different glass shapes. We did this with a couple different wines tasting them from all 8 glasses and what I found is that the shape did make a difference. This is for a couple reasons. The shape at the top will place the wine on your tongue in different ways. This will affect the way it tastes.
Also a bigger bowl will let the wine aerate more and make the smells really come alive which is great especially for red wines. White wine glasses are smaller so less is poured and can remain cool and flutes will keep the bubbles in your bubbly longer. Even these sweet wine glasses are dainty for more than their beauty, but they show us how much should be poured, which is a small amount.
But the tricky thing is that in a roomful of wine experts, everyone disagreed about which one was the best with each wine. So I can’t really say that the Syrah glass versus the Pinot Noir glasses for example are worth the money unless you spend a lot of time figuring out your own preferences.
If you are interested in how to smell, taste and describe wine, I will send you my FREE guide for learning how to easily taste and describe wine. Just click HERE and I will send it to you.
If you'd like more on this topic or want to see my favorite wine glass, check out my video on this topic and many more wine and hosting topics!