1 December 2017
Before yesterday night, I was not fussy at all about choosing glassware for enjoying wine. That may be because in most of the cases during the course of studying or judging wine, I use the standard ISO glass.
The important features of an ISO glass are the rounded bowl (to aid swirling the wine to allow the wine's aromas and flavours to release and evolve) and the inward-sloping walls (to capture those aromas and focus them on the nose and the palate). There are many other glasses that are suitable for tasting, some with more special features to intensify the aromas of particular grape varieties or wine styles. But they all share the above two key features.
Yesterday night, I was dining with some friends. Quite a coincidence, two of them each brought along a bottle of Clos-Vougeot Grand Cru – My favourite Burgundy!
We dined at a local Chinese restaurant, which does not offer fine wines, but welcomes diners to bring their own bottles with free corkage. As I was invited in such a short notice that I did not bring my own glass, I used a glass of the restaurant instead. That was a disaster! The glass was in a funnel shape, like the alphabet Y. Without inward-sloping walls, the glass could not capture the wine aromas, which were fully released in no time. What I could taste was just like flabby alcohol! The Clos-Vougeot’s were spoiled!!
I think the Y-shaped glass is suitable for just drinking water!
One lesson learned: If you “Bring Your Own Bottles, also Bring Your Own Glasses!” The cost of a decent wine glass really means something.
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