If you follow wine, you likely know that red wines and white wines are generally served in different glasses. But did you know that a lot of glassware out there is varietal specific? In other words, whether you’re drinking a bright Pinot Grigio, barbecue-friendly Tempranillo, or sweet late harvest Riesling, there’s a very particular glass engineered just for that pour.
Which begs the question: Is this savvy marketing or science (or both)? Having spent nearly 20 years in the wine industry, I’m aware of the many gimmicks out there. You can use a large bowl to decant wine just fine. You probably don’t need a Coravin unless you’re a wine collector or are sitting on some old gems. And don’t get me started on longwinded tasting notes (everybody’s palate is different and there’s too much psychology involved).
But that’s not to say there aren’t some great wine accessories out there, things that generally improve the wine tasting experience. A great wine key can make opening a bottle an art form. A good wine fridge can preserve your favorite wines for years to come. And quality glasses can in fact accentuate certain wines.
The benefits
There’s some serious rationale to the build and style of varietal-specific glasses. Wines vary in terms of weight, mouthfeel, acidity, tannin content, heat (alcohol level), ideal serving temperature, aromatics, and more and the idea is to craft a glass that brings the very best out of a wine’s many traits. A Champagne, for example, is best cold in a glass that can showcase the bubbles and keep that effervescence alive for as long as possible. Meanwhile, a Pinot Noir is a delicate red that benefits from a larger, more bulbous glass as it opens the wine up by treating it to some oxygen and lifts the complex aromatics. The same logic applies to beer and spirits but like most things, we can take it a bit too far.
The extreme
I remember hearing about Riedel and the invention of the Oregon Pinot Noir glass. I knew that the wines coming out of the famed Willamette Valley were quite different from those of the varietal’s native Burgundy, but wasn’t sold on a varietal-specific glass. Rumors swirled around wine country about brand execs and local winemaker meeting for countless hours over meals and tastings to get the shape of the glass just right. And when I finally started using the glasses (they’re so big they hold an entire bottle of wine and change) I began to see the perks.
But that’s not to say you need a glass for every varietal out there as certain styles work very well with a lot of different varietals, red and white, still and sparkling. While it’s cool to have a vast collection of something tailor-made for one precise thing, it’s decidedly unnecessary. Instead, you can get away with some core styles and still experience a varietal in its best form.
What you should have
With a reasonable arsenal of glassware, you can pretty much cover the varietal spectrum. Stemless glasses are great for everyday and inexpensive wines but your wine deserves a bit better. With a good stem, you get some elegance as well as some distance between your warm hands and the wine itself. You can swirl that wine without altering the temperature, softening the moutheel and waking up more subtle fragrances.
And while leading sommeliers and glassmakers might argue for using a specific glass for Zinfandel vs. Syrah vs. Rioja, those differences tend to be less significant (the glass is almost exactly the same for those wines as it were). I’m not here to steer you away from going this route if it adds to your wine journey but for general purposes, and those just looking to experience wine more thoroughly beyond mere universal glasses, go with at least a pair of each of the following:
Sparkling wine glass
Flutes are great and not just for NYE. They keep Champagne and other sparkling wines cold and crisp and fizzy. They allow you to enjoy the dance of the bubbles but also work great for dessert wines and fortified wines too.
Bordeaux glass
A bit taller and narrower for a red glass, the Bordeaux style is intended to concentrate the delicate aromatics of a good red blend while softening the heat of the alcohol. These wines are famous for their structure and this glass is made to emphasize that. Use them for any major Bordeaux varietal (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cab Franc, etc.), blend or otherwise. This style is also great for
Pinot Noir glass
Much more bulbous and sometimes with a flare at the top (tulip-shaped), this is your glass for lighter reds beyond Pinot, including Gamay Noir, Grenache, and some lower-alcohol natural red wines. This is also a prime glass for ___ and I even love employing them when drinking things like Belgian beers and IPAs.
Chardonnay glass
Having something in between a Bordeaux and Pinot Noir glass is ideal for the many in-between wines out there. Essentially, a Chardonnay or Shiraz glass will cover that part of the spectrum. It’s a medium-style glass for wines like Syrah, Tempranillo, Sangiovese, and more. Basically, it’s not quite as broad as a Pinot Noir glass and not quite as narrow as a Bordeaux glass. This shape does well showcasing the full fruit inherent to these wines as well as evening out the robust tannic structure.
Wine tells the story of a specific time and place and in order to hear that voice fully, some variation in glassware is very much advised. Unless you’re setting out to be a sommelier, you probably don’t need 30 different glass shapes, but at least with the basics, you’ll be treating the wines right, allowing them to really flex their distinctiveness.
Riedel is a fine option, but this writer is also partial to the options from Luigi Bormioli and Gabriel Glas.
