White wines

There was once a trend in a few Toronto restaurants to serve their wines—even expensive ones— in crude, thick little tumblers. It was supposed to be cute but it diminished the wines no end. Half the enjoyment we derive from a wine has to do with its aromas and a decent-sized, tulip-shaped wine glass is designed to gather and concentrate them, provided you don’t pour too generously. That said, many of the specialist wine glasses that have evolved over the centuries still have their fans and admirers—the sherry copita, for example, or the Riesling roemer. Glasses for white wine tend to be smaller than those for red to minimize the amount of oxidation and preserve the wine’s fresh fruity nuances.