1 Wine, 3 Cups




New York Magazine says to try this experiment with a ten-dollar bottle of wine:

Pour some into any old goblet and some into a proper tulip-shaped crystal Bordeaux glass. Taste. I guarantee you'll think you're drinking two different wines.

The glass you choose has a tremendous impact on your enjoyment of wine. Even unremarkable wines taste more elegant and refined when served in suitable stemware. And the finest wines are all but wasted if you drink them out of coffee mugs. The acquisition of excellent stemware is the first step towards improving your in-home wine experience.

 Tonight, we see if that's the case.  With a basic $10 Cabernet Sauvignon from my local grocery store, I sampled the inexpensive Cab in three very different glasses. 

#1:  A Take Out Coffee Cup

#2:  Riedel "O" Collection - Pinot Noir / Nebbiolo Tumbler

#3:  Riedel "Vitis" Cabernet Glass

Theoretically, your wine glass can change the entire experience of drinking wine.  This is mostly true because of how the glass effects the ways in which the odors emanate and escape from the glass.  That smell factor inevitably effects taste.  Because the olfactory bulb in our brain is exponentially more discerning than our taste buds, we're told "90 percent of what we call taste, is actually smell."

Hence, the delicate flavors of pinot noir or red Burgandy are served in the widest stemware available (see a stemless version in #2) above.  The thin and less perceptible aromas of these subtle wines need more surface area to react with the air and gather aromas.  The bouquet collects on the bottom of the glass and is funneled to your nose at the narrow rim which is designed to leave little space for the aroma to escape.  The shape is also said to direct the wine to the tip of your tongue.

Bordeaux style wines (Cabs, Merlots & bigger, richer reds) don't require the same level of interaction with the air.  The tall, broad bowl of a Cabernet glass (see #3) directs the wine to the back of your mouth, which is better for fuller-bodied wines.

The other big factor to consider is heat and the warming of the wine.  White wine glasses are usually small in order to prevent rapid warming in the glass. Technically, tumblers (like #2) are only supposed to be used for brandy because all other wines are not intended to be warmed by the holder's hand. I bought the tumbler style partly because they are inexpensive but mostly because there's less danger of it tipping over and shattering, a major concern if we're talking $50+ wine glasses.

On to the experiment:

I poured a small taste into to each glass and let it breath a bit.  I then went through each glass, one by one, and took sips.  After that, I made a little bit larger pour into each and went through them all all again.  Pretty basic.  I didn't bother doing a blind test as I would have been able to tell which glass was what when I picked it up and put it to my lips.

The coffee cup wine lost almost all its odor which definitely had an effect on the taste.  It smelled like styrofoam only, and by the time it hit my lips it was almost devoid of taste.  The pinot tumbler smell was entirely ruined by the fact that I put it through the dishwasher once several weeks earlier. It still reeked of dishwasher detergent. (fail.)  The overall best experience was definitely with the tall, clean, Vitis glass designed for this type of wine.

When I disconnected the smell from the sip, however, I didn't notice much difference between the pinot tumbler and Vitis Cabernet glass.  This leads me to believe that when we are casually drinking wine or in public and not making the effort to smell before each sip, the shape probably does not make all that much difference.  I certainly did not notice a discernible difference in terms of where the wine landed on my tongue.   When we're taking the time to stick our nose in the glass, smell, sip, and thoroughly enjoy the wine, however, the shape likely makes a more dramatic difference because of its impact on the smell. 

Conclusion 1: Don't wash your wine glass in the dishwasher.  Doh!

Conclusion 2: Shape can make a difference for two reasons.  The first is all of the science of stemware described above - the shape, the heat transference, the effect on the odor, etc.  But the second and probably more important reason is the effect that having a tall, impressive crystal glass in your hand has on your approach toward the wine. If you have a respectable, expensive glass, you pay more attention to the wine, and are more likely to smell and allow your olfactory glands to fire up.  Because the smell-related neurons in your brain are far more powerful and complex than your rudimentary taste buds, it heightens the experience and makes the wine taste better.   I have to believe that this adds to that "rush of pleasure" I look for in wine drinking. 

Bonus Cup! - The Secret of Bad Church Wine

The day after running this little experiment, I went to a friend's house for a BBQ and brought with me a bottle of 2006 Chasing Lions Bordeaux style blend as a gift.  We eventually opened the bottle and the host served it in the goblet pictured here.  Strangely enough, this thick glass stemware altered the taste and experience of the wine even more than the styrofoam coffee cup or detergent-soaked tumbler of the night before. Knowing I would be writing this post, I was, of course, intrigued as to why.

When I first took a sip out of this glass, the wine was remarkably similar to the wine served at communionin Catholic Church.  I am sure Father Vestbit, my childhood priest, did not serve Napa Valley Bordeaux-style blends at St. Stephen's every Sunday.  Moreover, I had a bottle of this same wine, same vintage just a month earlier in my apartment, and it tasted great.  

It turns out the lifeless feel of church wine and the altered and much degraded taste of this glass have everything to do with the shape and structure of the glass.  As New York Magazine points out:

A thin, properly shaped lip directs the flow of the wine into your mouth in such a way that the smooth stream touches the most sensitive areas of the tongue. A thick-rimmed glass, on the other hand, accentuates a wine's flaws, particularly harsh acidity and bitterness. Crystal has a rougher surface, on a microscopic level, than regular glass and therefore helps wine release its aromas as you drink.

The glass goblet from the BBQ was remarkably similar to the Communion glasses from church.  Both were extremely thick with a large, awkward lip folding over the rim.  This shape causes the drinker to wrap his or her lips over a large, folded edge of cold glass.  It tastes and feels awkward and numbs the mouth a bit by the time the wine reaches your lips.  On top of that, on a microscopic level, the wine glides over the smooth glass with less friction, releasing less aroma than in a crystal glass. 

Interesting, and I thought that crystal was just for the "ping!" when you toast.