In my heart I have always believed that the glass used was intrinsic to the enjoyment of wine, but the rational side of my brain niggled away, saying that this was due to the many social mores of winedrinking, cultivated over centuries to make wine-drinking an enjoyable pastime for the elite.
So I went along to the new Convention Centre in Dublin last night, to a Riedel tasting hosted by Maximilian Riedel, to affirm my prejudices, and boy was I right about glassware making a difference! Riedel have honed their glass design to an art form (indeed one of their glasses is housed in MOMA in New York), producing numerous individual designs which perfectly match the specific wine style on which they are built.
Having put four wines through the test, there is no doubt that shape and size of glass affect a wine’s flavour profile. Overall, balance, quality and length are heightened by serving a wine in its correct glass. Specifically, in the wines tasted last night: aromas, acidity, mouthfeel and length are all intensified by the correct glass.
Aromas: this was particularly evident by tasting Chardonnay in the Montrachet (Chardonnay) glass. Its balloon-shape created ‘an ocean of aromas’. The same Chardonnay in a Sauvignon Blanc glass had mute aromas. Tasted in a neutral plastic tumbler, the aromas were barely discernible at all.
Acidity, found at high levels for example in Sauvignon Blanc, is funnelled in a Riedel Riesling Grand Cru glass (also suited to Sauvignon Blanc). Its small diameter funnels the acidity and tones it down. Likewise for a red wine: Pinot Noir’s high acidity was funneled through an ‘acidity bumper’ in the Pinot Noir glass, which knocked the triangular elements of acidity and rendered it a more balanced wine. More than once, Maximilian suggested that acidity-prone drinkers might do well to invest in an acidity-friendly glass such as either of these.
Mouthfeel: Cabernet Sauvignon tasted in a large slightly tulip-shaped Cabernet glass spread the tannins and fruit across the palate, lifted the acidity and delivered very generous length of flavour. The same wine in a Chardonnay/Montrachet glass (which had served the NZ Chardonnay so well) barely hinted at the fruit aromas and was one-dimensional on the palate.
Length: unquestionably, the length delivered across all varieties when shown in the appropriate glass was awesome.
Maximilian’s presentation was as slick and stylish as his glassware, no doubt shaped also by 10 generations of glassmaking (Guinness are 3 years younger than Riedel, which puts the company’s heritage into perspective). While originally they created glass perfume bottles, in the last 50 years or so, Maximilian and his family have worked with winemaking luminaries such as Angelo Gaja and Robert Mondavi to create these glasses. Each glass is the result of a synthesis of exhaustive tasting workshops, to find the absolutely pitch-perfect match for each wine.
His humour and interaction with his audience was also apparent: likening the Sauvignon in a plastic tumbler to a Doctor’s sample; recommending that the only washing for his glasses should be through the dishwasher (to great female adulation) and that the best way to refresh a tired palate was to take a sip of beer (numerous males were already licking their lips at the suggestion). Overall, he kept an audience of over 200 people enraptured for well over an hour.
Riedel glassware is not cheap: their rule of thumb is to invest the price of a bottle of wine in buying one good Riedel glass. However, they would make a superb gift (and are beautifully packaged) for any serious wine connoisseur. I would recommend the versatile Riedel Vinum XL Tasting set, comprising one of each of the following: Riesling Grand Cru (also suited to Savuignon Blanc), Montrachet (for ‘big’ Chardonnays), Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. This set retails at €120 and is available, with many other beautiful pieces, in Mitchell and Son of Glasthule & CHQ.
Note: for objectivity, I conducted my tasting using the WSET Standard Approach to Tasting, which is the professional objective tasting technique I teach at Premier Wine Training WSET courses. The next WSET Intermediate course starts Oct 13th and is open for enrolment now.
Copyright, Maureen O’Hara, Sept 2010
