CHOOSE THE RIGHT WINE GLASS

Whether the wine at hand is a midweek wonder or prestige cuvée, choosing the right glassware can greatly enhance your experience of flavour, mouthfeel and aroma. That said, at the end of the day, the glass that works for your purpose and budget is the main thing.

Only have a paper cup or a coffee mug? Go for it! But if you want to stock your home bar to cater for any varietal, read on.

SHAPE AND SIZE

While there are many sizes of wine glasses available, most have a similar wide-bottomed shape that helps carry aromas from the wine to your nose. Generally speaking, white wines are served in smaller glasses and red wines in larger glasses. This is not a hard rule, but the more aromatic a wine, the larger you’ll want the bowl to be.

QUALITY

There are many brands of wine glasses on the market, from your run of the mill supermarket range to big players who work with sommeliers and winemakers to design glasses specific to a wine style (eg: light bodied, full bodied) or varietal.

Like most things in life, you do get what you pay for, so buy the best you can afford. If there’s only room for one glass in your cabinet, consider RIEDEL’s ‘Magnum’, which can be used for both red and white wines, or Zalto’s Universal Glass.

SPECIALTY GLASSES

How far you want to go with your wine glass collection is up to you, but two top additions after you’ve got your red and white stemware organised are sparkling and dessert wine glasses.

While there’s a growing movement to serve sparkling in white wine glasses (largely driven by wine bars and restaurants), there’s still a romance to sipping from a flute

or tulip-shaped glass. Their small surface area also helps preserve the bubbles. Fortified and dessert-style wines are traditionally served from smaller vessels with a wide bowl, which suit the aroma and smaller serving size of a high-alcohol wine.