Good (specialized) wine glasses are one of the few bits of wine snobbery that make sense, to a degree.

Don't believe me?

Get a nice bottle of wine, red, white, whatever.

Serve the same wine in a variety of glasses, ranging from the "perfect" riedel/speigelau glass for that type to a plastic tumbler. (Even in good glasses for the (an)other type of wine. Even the difference between Burgundy and Bordeaux glass is noticeable)

Do the taste taste witt he whole wine geek swilling of wine inthe glass smelling the aroma and drink it.

The difference is quite noticeable, even for those of us with iffy sense of smell.

it is certainly brilliant marketing. the french, however, drink all their wines from one glass. so go figure.

anyhoo, you forgot Ravenscroft. They have the nicest shapes and the most delicate glasses for a price very reasonable compared to Reidel. No, we aren't talking 8 bucks for 4 tho.

The Italians, too, who I would argue have some of the best red wines in the world, also drink red wine from a humble glass tumbler.

Mmmmmm.

That's funny, I'm down to 2 wine glasses myself. Such an easy thing to purchase, just a pain to grab glasses and carry them around while doing weekend shopping chores.

I saw this a while ago on the UNBREAKABLE wine glass.
http://www.decanter.com/news/85329.html?aff=rss

Personally, I go to wine-tastings at vineyards here in Oregon where the glass is including in the price of the tasting. I never seem to break the glasses that are (more or less) FREE.

Also enjoy drinking out of Riedel stemless glasses - much less precarious than the traditional shaped glasses.

I think its all just a good marketing scheme. Of course there are nasty cheap glasses with thick edges/lips but crystal isn't necessary. Being Irish Italian and Portugues, I was raised with serious food habits and we drank wine out of the same kind of glass, from home made stuff to good stuff. The only caveat we grew up with is that one never ever uses that glass for milk. The French agree.

Nice to buy crystal if you can but good wine is good wine. Besides, there are wonderful non-crystal wine glasses out there.

Jesse,

Yes the French and Italians do drink from one glass. For table wine. Once the good stuff comes out you'll often see it poured into an appropriate glass. Perhaps there won't be a specific varietal glass, but you will see a difference between glasses for red and white (not to mention dessert wines).

I love having appropriate glasses for whatever I'm drinking. My cabinets are crammed with nice glasses for reds, whites, champagne, cocktails, spirits, beer, etc.

Another great solution to the oh-no-I-broke-all-my-wine-glasses conundrum: buy them from Ikea, 6 glasses for $5. To a wine ignoramus like me, it's much more important to have glasses that I feel fine about letting friends use at parties (and, inevitably, break) than it is to have "perfect," terrifyingly expensive ones.

I was a sceptic about using the proper shape of wine glass until I went to a wine tasting in Italy recently. I was really surprised at how the narrower opening of the glasses concentrated the scent of the wine, and I'm now a convert.

That being said, while crystal would certainly be more pleasurable to hold and admire than plain old glass, I can't believe there would be any difference in the taste, so I plan on going with more the cost-effective solution.

it is so *not* a marketing scheme, just try it for yourself: pour good (the operative word being good) into a variety of glasses and notice for yourself the difference.

I used be a Riedel guy because of the thin lip and all that...but Schott Zwiesel, with their Tritan technology, has made a glass that does not easily break and is just as elegant at a third of the price....fantastic glasses

http://www.utilitieshome.com/store.php?crn=80&rn=570&action=show_detail

It's the shape of the glass that makes the difference, not the material the glass is made of. Most of our drinking glasses are made of soda lime glass while those being sold as crystal have PbO added to make them sparkle more. They also tend to be heavier than the soda lime glass. One thing to consider though, studies have shown that Pb does leach out of the glass, so might be better to stay with the ordinary glass.

It DOES make a difference - I could tell you blindfolded the difference between a cup of tea out of a bone china tea cup and that from a stoneware mug

Its partly to do with what the glass is made of and partly to do with the shape - thats why the different shapes were invented people!!

I don't want to get into an argument here but unless someone can show me a link or an ad from a crystal glass manufacturer that says wine tastes better from their glasses bec of the material it's made of (not from the shape), there is not proof it's the glass that affects the taste. Your test of the china tea cup and stoneware mug: again, it's the shape. Unless you have 2 tea cups of the exact same shape and thickness, you cannot make that comparison. The parameters are totally different.

i think that if you're a serious wine conniseur (for instance if you can actually spell that word!), and you frequently entertain with high end wines, a serious set of high quality wine glasses in the "correct" shapes is probably for you. and if you feel finicky about it, sure, crystal, why not?

the reality, however, for most everyday wines, is that you're really not going to notice a whole hell of a lot of difference among the different shapes or between a proper Wine Glass (tm) and a glass tumbler. i grew up in a wine drinking family, feel like i really know my stuff, and definitely have a palate for the subtleties of different wines. and guess what? the $10 bottles of Cotes du Rhone and Albarinho i generally open when friends come to dinner taste exactly the same in either a little juice glass or a proper goblet.

i should also add that when i trotted out the different shaped wine glasses in front of european roommates a few years ago, the looked at me like i had 4 heads. these were also people who knew their wine.

When I brought out a pint glass in front of my redneck friends they just couldn't understand why I didn't drink from the can like God intended.

Everyone owes it to themselves to try out a good glass at least once. Your own mouth will tell you much more than any appeal-to-authority-by-proxy argument.

I tend to agree with the opoponax. While I was growing up in Italy I never drank wine, good or everyday, out of anything but tumblers. And glass tumblers at that. The exception were: spumante, sipped out of your tiypical champagne flutes and dessert wine ( much sweeter and with higher alcoholic content), served in sherry-like stem glasses ( crystal or otherwise)

Perfect timing for me! My girlfriend has been going to wine tastings and is now swirling and such--want to update our IKEA breakables--what do people think about the blown glass glasses ($8) at Crate&Barrel--or is the 5% crystal of Speigelau a bit better?

Also, anyone believe in wine carafes? Should I add that to the budding wine snob x-mas list?

i like crate & barrel for price and quality, but it annoys me how gigantic their wine glasses are. makes me feel like a dwarf or a child alcoholic every time i drink out of them. very few wines need goblet bowls the size of your head or stems the length of your forearm, however pretty they might look on the shelf.

that said, i've always wanted a carafe. for no other reason than that they are pretty. i'm not sure whether i'd rather the table wine restaurant style (they double as vases!) or one of the pretty ones crate & barrel has.

i have never seen wine served from a carafe at wine tastings, wine bars, or fine dining restaurants, though, so i don't think they have much to do with taste, just aesthetics.

I also highly recommend Schott Zwiesel Tritan. I bought there "water glass" as a good all around shape and love them. We have broken a few, but in much not using/washing them as seemed to happen with the Riedel ones we had. If you live in DC area (or know someone who does) the Fortessa Outlet store in Chantilly often has them for seriously discounted prices (it is open tomorrow and Saturday, BTW). They also have beautiful porcelain items with very clean lines.

Decanters are good for a few things. If you are drinking older red wine there is often sediment at the bottom (which is no fun in your glass, be it a tumbler or fancy stem). You decant the wine into your decanter with either a wine funnel or a steady hand, leaving the sediment in the bottle.

If you are going to have a long dinner the decanter can also improve the taste of the wine by exposing it to more oxygen. Decanters very wide bases, and when you fill them with a standard 750ml bottle they will leave a large surface area of the wine open to the air. This won't make much of a difference if you're finishing the wine in 30 minutes, but often a nice bottle of red (or even some mediocre) benefits from sitting out for an hour or so.

A carafe is a different sort of thing, usually it's just a measure for restaurants. A carafe typically holds between 325 or 500ml and is a way to sell more than a glass but less than a bottle. Carafes usually do not have the wide bases, they are shaped more like vases.

A glass is really more for appreciating the bouquet of the wine than anything else. There is a reason behind the shapes.

Champagne flutes are shaped with a subtle inward curve to help trap the bubbles as they rise to the surface. It also exposes less of the wine to the air, helping preserve the carbonation.

The big "balloon" glasses for reds are designed to be filled only with the standard pour (about 4oz) leaving the rest of the glass as a trap for the aroma. When you drink from a glass like that your nose will end up right in the bowl, giving you your wine and a good sniff at the same time. This has gotten out of hand in recent years, however, with some truly ludicrous size goblets that are more like punch bowls.

Whites generally don't have the big aromas like complex reds do, so they are served in more streamlined glasses.

Brandies and cognacs are served in snifters because they fit well in the palm of a hand. This allows the hand to warm the spirit, releasing more of the aroma and flavor while also acting like a trap as in the case of the red wine glasses.

"Whites generally don't have the big aromas like complex reds do, so they are served in more streamlined glasses."

i'm not sure this is true. it may be common parlance, but it's not fact. one of the few times i've ever really noticed the difference the proper wine glass makes was with a fabulous white with a big floral nose that was enhanced to perfection with the perfect inward sloping goblet sides of an ideal white wine glass. i have never smelled anything like that. it was heaven. and heaven was shown off to much greater effect with the proper WHITE wine glass.

and this is why i think the current trend for 'correct' wine glasses is a bit off base -- because when you go to a shop to buy barware, the salespeople will tell you something like max's above post. when the reality is just so much more complicated. and again, unless you frequently host elaborate tastings with rare and expensive bottles, none of it is really going to make much of a difference. i have two each of really good red and white for when i'm drinking something really impressive. but more often than not, when i open an ordinary bottle of wine (and almost invariably when i host laid back dinner parties), i serve it in either juice or rocks glasses. and nobody ever complains, and i don't think it makes me less of a host.

I disagree opoponax. Comparing white wine and red wine the reds almost always have bigger noses. This is not to say whites don't have lovely aromas, but they just don't have as much of them. Part of this is because whites are served at a lower temperature than reds (though often over-chilled). When the wine doesn't have as much of a "big nose" like a big red does you need to concentrate it, hence the more streamlined glass that will deliver the shot of aroma to you when you drink.

Though I'm not sure what the point you were making is about the glasses. My post said that there is a reason for the shapes, and because red and white wines are different we have different shapes. Your post seems to see the same thing. You know I love to argue with you, but it seems we are both trying to make the same point!

i'm saying that, for the casual drinker, it all boils down to marketing. there are whites with noses. there are light fruity reds that don't have a lot going on in that department. if a salesperson tells you that the reason white wine glasses are shaped the way they are is that whites "don't have noses" (and you believe them and buy what they tell you to buy and always serve every white wine in that glass like an obedient little yuppie), then YES at that point it becomes far more about the marketing and the owning of stuff, and the "Sideways" pretentious wine cult, much more than any real sensibility or palate for the wine itself.

you're not going to get anything more out of a fancy reidel goblet of a $15 Shiraz than you would if it were served in a jelly jar. on the other end of things, if you really are interested in wine for wine's sake, you're going to need to know more about stemware than your classic Wine 101 talking points in order to be able to best enjoy it. and if you're at that end of wine consumption, then sure, get the full set, in crystal. but if you're not, just admit that you're not and drink your Yellow Tail and Goats du Roam out of a basic glass like normal people.

how often do you drink budweiser or pabst out of those fancy pilsners?

I hate bud, and pabst is pretentious hipster swill. I'm probably not cool enough to drink it. If I'm drinking cheap beer I'll stick with Rolling Rock right out of the bottle. The good growlers from Bier Kraft go into pints and pilsners.

Agreeing with you is hard work! I'm trying to communicate that glass shape is not all about marketing. There really are solid reasons why the wine world has different glasses. We can debate the relative merits of what wine will best take advantage of specialized stems (and I've had some $15 wines that beat the pants off bottles costing ten times as much), but the point remains that it's not hocus pocus.

My philosophy is that when I drink a fantastic wine I'm going to try and enhance it by serving it in a proper vessel. If I'm having a mediocre bottle with not much going for it I'm still probably going to serve it in the right glass because I've already got the glasses. I have yet to pour my white into a mason jar and shout "Yeah! Here's stickin' it to the yuppie wine store salesman!"

Let's flip this around a bit. What wine benefits from being served in a juice glass over a specific stem?

Benefits from being served in a juice glass (largely to convince the drinker that this is a funky, authentic, down-to-earth experience):

--Anything made from domestic American grapes rather than imported vinifera grapes. (Think obscure NY wines with funny labels.)

--Anything served for $4 at a red-sauce pasta house.

--Grappa.

Max:
Everyone owes it to themselves to try out a good glass at least once. Your own mouth will tell you much more than any appeal-to-authority-by-proxy argument.

Yes, everyone should try a good crystal glass at least once. I, myself, bought crystals for dinner parties. All I'm saying is, the quality of the glass makes no difference to the taste and logic dictates that that's the case. It would be foolhardy to start saying otherwise, and believe me, I've heard quite a number of "supposedly" wine connoisseurs say that. To satisfy my curiosity, I did a crude test of the extractables a few years ago and did not see any difference. However, since I'm not an oenologist, nor do I subscribe to the J. of Oenology, I'm willing to listen if someone has seen some publication stating otherwise.