Serving Wines - The Wine Glass
There is no shortage of published advice on how to serve wine. But if
you ever have the occasion to attend a wine judging, you may be
astonished to find a dozen gentlemen sipping—and spitting out—a vast
array of wines ranging from the dryest sherry to the sweetest muscat and
the champagne, all taken from glasses of the same tulip shape.
The first, and unquestionably the most important thing to know about
wine is that it has four basic characteristics: appearance, bouquet,
flavor and finish. To appreciate the appearance of a wine one must be
able to see its color and its viscosity (some wines are "thicker" than
others because of their higher glycerine content), therefore the glass
in which it is served should be clear. Colored glass may look very well
on an elaborate table setting; use it if you care little for the
appearance of your wine for you will not be able to see its true color
through colored glass. There are some lovely glasses on the market, of
the most elaborate and varying shape and size, but very few are really
suitable for the serving of wines. Except in rare instances, they have
large, open mouths which allow the bouquet of the wine rapidly to
dissipate. The ideal shaped wine glass is the short-stemmed tulip which
allows the wine to be swished around leaving a film of liquid clinging
to the inside—and none spilt on the table cloth. If you try to do this
with the large, open-mouthed glass the chances are that some of the wine
will land in your hostess's lap!
The flavor and the finish of the wine will not be much affected by the
glass, but most wines, with the exception of the dry whites and the
Moses, are better for a little warming. Heat from the hands is adequate
for this, so the thinner the glass the more readily it will warm. The
illustration, above, shows two wine glasses. The glass on top is
that most commonly used for wine judging and in the wine cellars. It
conforms in every way with the ideal of a wine-glass, with the one
possible exception that it is a little too thick; perhaps economy
determines this for the thinner the glass, usually the more expensive it
is. The glass below is the one we consider to be the perfect
combination of size, shape and thin-ness. In our view this glass
is suitable for the entire range of wines, from the aperitif to
champagne. If you must drink champagne from the shallow, open-mouthed
coupe, don't expect to get the best from the wine, even if you feel you
are getting the best from the occasion!
It is not necessary to have a fresh glass for every different wine you
serve. Sherry, taken as an aperitif, is usually drunk away from the
table, before the meal. Another set of tulip glasses on the table will
do for the dry whites, the dry reds and for the dessert wines, the
champagne or the brandy if you intend to go through the entire gamut. A
glass tumbler on the table will prove useful, for all you need to do as
you change from one wine to another through the progress of the meal is
to swill out your glass with a very little of the next wine—not more
than half an inch in the glass—and discard it into the tumbler. Perhaps
you can't do this at a formal dinner, or even with guests in the house,
in which case you will either have to wash the glasses between wines, or
have enough of them to cope with each wine as it is served. It's all a
matter of personal taste. The purpose of rinsing the glass with a little
of the next wine is to remove any noticeable trace of the last which
might affect the flavor and bouquet of the wine to follow. |
