Whether red or white, sweet or dry, full-bodied or light, wine requires specific serving procedures in order to tap into the full potential that it has to offer. Understanding the different types of glassware and how they complement your wine will help amplify your overall wine drinking experience! Welcome to Wine Glasses 101.

Parts of a Wine Glass

The Foot: Allows the wine glass to stand upright

The Stem: Allows you to hold the glass without warming the wine up. If you were to hold the glass by the bowl, the wine would start warming up due to the body heat coming from your hands. While this may not be as big of a deal for red wines (as they are typically served at room temperature), it is probably not the best idea for a chilled white wine or champagne. Warming the glass could change the flavor of the wine

Image courtesy of Libbey®

The Bowl: Has numerous purposes; this is where you’ll find the most variation between glasses. The bowls of wine glasses are typically tapered upward with a slightly narrower opening at the top than at the bottom for proper swirling. The swirl is what releases the aroma compound of your wine. When you put the glass up to your nose after the swirl, you’ll notice a concentrated aroma coming directly from the glass. This allows for a better tasting wine and overall experience.

The bowls of wine glasses often differ in surface area depending on the type of wine you choose to drink. Red wines calls for a glass with a larger surface area to allow the wine to breathe, while white wine call for a glass with a smaller surface area. Champagne is served in a glass with a very small surface area, such as the flute, to allow the wine to retain its carbonation.

The Rim: The rim is where the flavor hits your palette first and serves a more important role than one would think. Mixologist Sandy Verma describes it best, “The rim is imperative to achieving the full experience from your wines. The thinner the rim, the less the glass distracts from the wine as you sip. A good wine glass will have a “cut” rim that is smooth to touch and does not inhibit the wine as it flows out of the glass. Less expensive glassware may have rims that are rolled or bumpy – while still functional, and very much practical for everyday use, these wine glasses may distract from the wine itself.”

Wine by the Glass

Red Wine

Red wines are best served in large wine glasses. The bowls of these glasses will be rounder and fuller with a larger opening than other wine glasses of similar capacities. This will allow you to dip your nose into the glass to detect the aroma through both taste and smell allowing for the best wine experience.

White Wine

A white wine glass will be slightly slimmer than that of a red wine glass; it will have more a U-shape to it. Less volume in the glass allows the wine to stay cooler longer while still letting the wine showcase its aroma. White wine glasses can have two types of openings – a slightly larger opening to direct the wine to the tip and sides of the tongue or a taller more narrow opening to direct the wine to the back of the tongue. The taller narrower opening is most applicable for more mature wines.

Sparkling Wine or Champagne

A sparkling wine glass will have the smallest volume of all the wine glass. This will allow the sparkling wine to retain its carbonation and temperature for a longer period of time helping the drinker capture the full flavor in the beverage.  When you think of sparkling wine, think of flute glasses or coupe glasses

Rose Wine

Rose wines most commonly offer a medium-sweet taste to them but can also be very dry. Stemmed glasses with a short bowl that either have a tapered or a flared rim best compliment this wine.  Tapered rims compliment a rose with a full-bodied flavor while flared rim enhances the sweetness of a lighter rose.

Pairings

Here are a few options for pairing wine with wine glasses from the Libbey® Masters Reserve® Collection, an American-made glassware collection presenting both elegance and style.

Prism 24 oz. Courtesy of Libbey®

Burgundy

Burgundy is a red wine which means it needs a larger bowl allowing for a nice swirl to release the aromas of the wine. This 24 oz. glass is ideal for a Burgundy wine. It also works well with a Pinot Noir or any other full-bodied wine.

Renaissance 24 oz. Courtesy of Libbey®

Cabernet Sauvignon

Jerry Moore, a Libbey® glassware product manager says that this 24 oz. Renaissance glass is “perfect for Cabernet Sauvignon.”  Stating, “It’s got a really wide bowl that helps with the evaporation and the aroma. This puts it more toward the back of the tongue.” Shiraz, Zinfandel, and Malbec are other red wines that also work well with this glass.

Renaissance 13 oz. Courtesy of Libbey®

Pinot Grigio

The 13 oz. Renaissance glass is best for a Pinot Grigio. It is wide enough to allow the wine to breathe while being small enough to keep the wine cool in temperature.

Courtesy of Libbey®

Chardonnay

A Chardonnay needs a slightly larger bowl than the Pinot to allow for more swirling to let the aroma to take precedence. However, the bowl should not be so big that the Chardonnay loses its cool temperature.

Prism 8 oz Flute. Courtesy of Libbey®

Champagne

This is where the flute glass comes to play. It has a long stem, narrow bowl, and tapered rim to allow the champagne to retain its carbonation and cool temperature for a longer period of time.

In the end, there is a whole science when it comes to wine and wine glasses. But the final result when the right glass is paired with the right wine is true perfection in a glass! Class dismissed.

Call Houston’s today and let us help you meet your wine glass needs!

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Torani® Holiday Pomegranate Punch

Ingredients

1 ½ cups Torani® Pomegranate Syrup

¾ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 ½ cups light rum

1 teaspoon orange bitters

2 (750 ml) bottles of your favorite brut sparkling white wine

ice

Instructions

Chill all ingredients before combining them in a punch bowl.  Stir well.  (Tip:  to make sure the punch doesn’t get watered down as the ice melts, try making ice cubes with Torani® Pomegranate Syrup—just use a 1:4 ratio of syrup to water).  Garnish the punch bowl with sliced oranges and pomegranate seeds if desired.

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Defining a boutique winery can be challenging, though, because the concept means different things to different producers and consumers.  For some, being a boutique wine maker means that their wines are only produced in small batches.  But  quantifying “small batches” is a subjective task, and no one can quite agree on whether that is 5000 cases, or 10,000 cases, or even 50,000 cases.  Still others believe that even the biggest of wineries can have a boutique element, if they produce small batches of a specialty wine alongside their regular mass production.   Maybe a boutique winery is one with a great story, a wine maker with a history or a standing in the community in which they live, not unlike produce farms who sell to members of their community and know not only the people who purchase from them but also have a relationship with the crops they cultivate.  It’s a hands-on, intimate, passion for their craft that defines them.   Lane Tanner, for example, is a boutique winemaker in Santa Barbara County in California.  She purchase grapes from growers and then usually makes three varieties of Pinot Noir and a Syrah from those grapes.  She spends her time going to the grower and choosing the grapes based on their taste, their maturity, and their complexity, but not by the scientific method of “when the sugar hits a certain number.”  She treats her growers right, keeping in touch with them throughout the year and even giving them gifts after the harvest.  Money is not her motivating business factor, but rather a love of producing fantastic wines that sell out every year even without conventional advertising.

And word of mouth is really one of the best forms of advertising you can have when dealing in boutique wines.  Satisfied customers are likely to spread the news so ask your friends, ask your local wine shop, ask your wine club.  Finding a boutique that crafts a wine you love may seem like a large task, but it will be well worth the time invested.  You will notice the love, the passion, the art, the skill, that went in to putting together one bottle of wine that was seemingly made just for you!

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Now, though, wine pairing is much more than these generic matches.  While it is said that taste is subjective, there are quantifiable measures of taste that allow for pairing outside of the subjective flavors that are personal to the drinker.  Wine experts, then, seek to determine these tastes—bitter (tannins), sweet (residual sugar), and sour (acidity) components that are attributed to wines and subsequently used to match them with the foods they will most complement.  There is also a fourth component, the alcohol content, that causes a “heat” in the back of the mouth and some foods work to downplay that heat while others bring attention to it.

A wine’s tannins, derived from the skins, seeds, and stems of the grape, can be somewhat bitter.  When paired with dishes that are high in fat and protein (think red meat or hard cheese), the foods can tame those tannins, softening their astringent character.  Spicy foods or charred, seared foods, too, can complement the drying effect of the tannins.

The sweetness of wine will oftentimes balance spice and heat of a dish, but it can also accentuate sweet foods or contrast with salty fare.  Pair sweet wines with spicy Asian cuisine, for example, and the sugars in the wine will offset the spice of the peppers.  Bleu cheese couples well with sweet wine because the saltiness of the cheese is offset by the sugar content in the drink.

Acidity in wine can heighten the perception of flavors in a dish, but it can also be used to reduce them as well.  Rely on acidic wines to play off of foods in much the same manner as combinations used in cooking.  For example, the acidity of a lemon can be used to offset briny shellfish such as clams or oysters.  Serving a tart, acidic meal with an overly tart wine will allow the flavors to be more noticeable.

The alcohol content of a wine determines its weight and body, and heavier wines increase the awareness of density or texture in a meal.  Hefty wines should be used when you want to emphasize a quality of spiciness, saltiness, or weight in a meal, such as pairing a substantial cabernet with a marbled steak seared over an open flame.

The key to pairing wine with food is really to think of wine traits as flavor ingredients.  Using the tasting tools from previous articles, learn to tease out the subtleties of your favorite wines to then pair them with your favorite foods.  Below are just a few of the styles of wine and their best food counterparts to get you started.

Cabernet Sauvignon:  With strong tannins, this elegant wine pairs well with well-marbled beef and hearty fowl, foods with spicy rubs or soy marinades, and with grilled meats.

Merlot:  Rounder and softer than Cabernet, fruity Merlot is often matched with meaty fish such as tuna, lamb, or meats with fruit sauces.

Pinot Noir:  This light-bodied, low tannin red works best with earthy foods such as mushrooms or lentils, as well as with wild game such as venison.

Chardonnay:  The rich, creamy texture of this wine pairs well with white fish, poultry, and pork.  It is also a nice complement to pastas with cream and butter sauces, and works well with the creamy textures of winter squash.

Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio:  Crisp and light, with great acidity, match this wine with fresh herbs and coconut curries, with mild cheeses, or with shellfish and chicken.

Sauvignon Blanc:  This lean, crisp wine is a perfect addition to summertime fare, such as salads with mild vinaigrette dressing and green vegetables.  Its flexibility also allows for the combination of delicate fish or oysters, and a large variety of cheeses.

Champagnes/Sparkling wines:  Most dry sparkling wines are tinged with just a touch of sweet, making them a perfect accompaniment to salty foods or berries.

Although there is an art, and maybe even a bit of a science, to matching foods and wines, remember, too, that taste and enjoyment are very subjective and there is no real textbook way to account for your personal satisfaction.  What you read about pairing is really meant to be a guideline to demonstrate how the textures and flavors, weight, sugars, alcohol content, tannins, and acids of wine work with those same elements of a meal.  Practice will help you to understand your own preferences, and who doesn’t like to hone their skills when it involves eating great food and drinking great wine?

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Every wine glass is comprised of three different parts:  the bowl, the stem, and the base.  The base allows the glass to stand up, and the stem allows you to hold the glass without warming the wine or smudging the glass.  The most imperative, though, is the bowl—designed specifically to allow the appropriate amount of surface area for the wine you are drinking.  Generally speaking, white wine does not need to breathe as much as its red counterpart and thus white wine glasses are taller with narrower openings whereas red wine glasses are designed with a larger surface area, allowing the wine to “breathe.”

White wine glasses typically come in two shapes. Both are tall, u-shaped, and upright to help maintain the optimal cooler serving temperatures.  But younger whites, such as a crisp sauvignon blanc, require a slightly larger opening to direct the wine to the tips and sides of the tongue to allow the drinker to taste its sweetness.  More mature whites, as in a buttery chardonnay, necessitate a straight and tall glass, dispensing the wine to the back of the tongue so that its bolder flavors are sensed.

Red wine glasses are, as mentioned, fuller and rounder to allow one to dip their nose in and smell the complexities of the bouquet as the wine comes into contact with the air.  A Bordeaux glass is taller, with a slightly smaller bowl, and is designed for full-bodied red wines such as cabernet or merlot—the tall glass sends the wine directly to the back of your mouth to maximize its flavor.  The more delicate flavors of lighter red wines—think Pinot Noir—require a larger bowl to direct the wine toward the tip of the tongue.

When drinking sparkling wines, the intent is to capture the flavor while retaining the carbonation and keeping the fluid as cold as possible for as long as possible.  Fluted glasses with long stems are optimal for the enjoyment of your favorite bubbly.

Dessert wines are slightly higher in alcohol content so serving them in small glasses is ideal.  Additionally, smaller glasses direct the wine to the back of the mouth, slightly quelling its sweetness.

Practically speaking, it may be difficult to offer a glass style for every wine provided, either in your home or in your restaurant.  A general suggestion, then, would be to make sure you have flutes on hand for sparkling wines, and some sort of all-purpose red wine glass as well as an all-purpose white glass.  Or at the very least, choose a single glass with a bowl shape between that of a red and white wine glass so that it acceptable to use no matter the drink preference of your diner.

As for the material of a wine glass, the favorable choice is crystal or blown glass because the glass is thin, as is the rim, so as not to inhibit the flow of the wine you are drinking.  While designs on wine glasses can be fun, clear and smooth is preferred because it allows one to appreciate the legs of the wine, how the light affects the color, and the clarity and texture of the wine being tasted.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, how you clean your wine glasses matters.  Hand washing in hot water only is the preferred method of cleaning, as it does best at preventing soap build-up.  However, if you must use soap, remember that less is more when washing your wine glasses.

Drinking wine should be a pleasure, and while good wine is a pleasure in and of itself, pairing it with the appropriate glass can intensify your wine tasting experience.  Whether red wine, white wine, or sparkling wine is your drink of choice, give the optimal glass choice a try and see if you notice a difference.

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Take a sip of the wine from your glass but do not swallow it yet.  First, try to expose the wine to all of your taste buds by rolling it around in your mouth.  While your taste buds are detecting the complex flavors of the wine, you should also pay attention to the texture of the wine, and to its weight or body.  Do you taste fruit?  Spice?  Butter or honey?  Do you taste herbs or earthiness?  Woodiness?  Or perhaps you taste a complex combination of several of these characteristics.  The flavor components of the wine should be well balanced and proportionate, and they should present harmoniously in your mouth.

Complex wines change in flavor even as you taste them.  If you take a second sip of the wine you are tasting, try to do it with a little bit of air—you may have to “slurp” to accomplish this.  You should be able to note some differences in the flavors and the textures of the wine when air is added to your mouth.  Can you detect many flavors as the wine moves around in your mouth?  What is its mouthfeel—or the texture and weight of the wine?  Does it change when you add air to your sip or does it remain somewhat the same?  Let the flavors dance in your mouth while you ask yourself these questions.

When you finally drink the wine, note the length of time the taste remains in your mouth even after you have swallowed.  This is the wine’s finish.  The longer the flavors linger is a good determinate of the quality of the wine.  What is your last flavor impression?  Do you like the way it tastes?  At this point in your tasting experiment, you may want to take notes of your overall impression of the wine.  Taking notes has a two-fold benefit:  one, you will be able to remember later the wines that you prefer and why, which is very helpful if you plan to taste several throughout the day.  And two, journaling the characteristics of each wine will help you in your learning process.

When will you be heading out to do a wine tasting?  Armed with a small amount of background knowledge should heighten your experience.  From the first view of a wine to the last swallow, tasting wine can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be.  And since there is no right or wrong way to taste a wine, remember first and foremost to enjoy what you are drinking!

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There are three levels of a wine’s aroma that you will hear a wine specialist refer to.  The first is its primary, or varietal, aroma, the smell of the variety of grape used to make the wine.  And then its secondary, or vinous, aroma, which is developed during the pre-fermentation and fermentation processes and is a by-products of the yeast activities.

Then, finally, you will hear specialists speak to the bouquet of the wine, or its tertiary aroma.  This is the most complex of the smell of the wine, taking time—sometimes years—to fully develop.   In essence, the bouquet of the wine comes from the aging process.  For example, if a vintner uses oak barrels, that may contribute to the spicy, smoky, or vanilla scent of a wine.

When evaluating wine by the smell, you should first give the glass a vigorous swirl in order to allow oxygen to enter the wine.  This will cause the wine to release its scents.  Put your nose near the rim of the glass, using care to hover just over the top of the rim.  Don’t inhale deeply but rather take a series of quick, short sniffs.  It helps to keep your mouth slightly open.  After breathing in the aroma of the wine, take a moment to process what you smell.

First, were there any off-aromas?  Did you smell musty wet newspaper?  The smell of burnt matches?  Vinegar?  Did the wine reek of sweat?  Anything off-smelling could indicate spoilage, volatile acids, too much sulfur dioxide, or other flaws that deem the wine unpalatable or not fit for consumption.

After determining there are no flaws, smell for the aroma of fruit.  As your nose becomes more trained you will be able to detect a spectrum of possible fruit scents that will help you to identify the growing conditions of the vineyard—in other words, were the grapes grown in a mostly cool climate, a moderate climate, or a very warm climate?  It is also possible to determine the terrain of the vineyard by the varietal aroma of the wine.

Some of the complex tertiary smells you may encounter are the more complex scents of flowers, grass, earth/mineral/rocks, tack-room leather, smoke, vanilla, chocolate, espresso, or roasted nuts.  Remember, these bouquets are a remnant of the aging process of the wine itself, and they are the elements that give the wine its valued complexity.

There are different aromas associated with white wines than with their red counterparts, but regardless of the color of the wine, the fruit should smell clean and fresh.  While earth and mineral smells are considered complex, dirt in the fruit is not a desirable trait.

Putting words to the wine aromas will help you to focus, understand, and retain your impression of different wines.  Your memory is a good means for determining wine smells and what they mean, and learning some of the language of vintners and wine specialists will certainly take you far.  But the list is vast and can be confusing, especially when you are first learning.   A great resource is the Davis Wine Aroma Wheel, designed to help you learn to describe the complex flavors of wine.

In reality, there is no right or wrong way to nose a wine.  There are tips to get you started and tips to help you progress in your knowledge, but in the end, do what works for you to evaluate by aroma.  It’s not rocket science, but rather just a tool to help you fully enjoy your wine-drinking experience!  Cheers!

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The clarity of a wine refers to its ability to reflect or absorb light.  Observing the clarity of white wines, and sparkling wines too, is pretty straight-forward.  The wine should be shiny and you should be able to see through it.  It’s a bit more challenging with red wines, though, simply because of the darker color of the liquid.  Tip the glass away from you and against a white background.  You should be able to see a shine within the red hue.  Wines that have gone bad may have a lack of clarity, such as cloudiness or murkiness observed in the wine.

Next, check a wine’s color by contrasting the liquid against the white background.  Tilt your glass a bit and note its intensity.  Light-bodied red wines such as Pinot Noir and Gamay, for example, range in color from lighter, brighter magenta to garnet, while their full-bodied counterparts, such as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon will be a deeper burgundy color and more opaque in appearance.  White wines tend to deepen in color as they age.  A young Pinot Grigio may have an almost green hue to it, while a rich golden color lends itself to an oak-aged Chardonnay.   If you notice a bluish rim on a wine, don’t be alarmed.  This may occur in a lower-acidity wine such as Syrah.

The consistency of a wine can also be used to assess it.  Examine the thickness of the wine by swirling the liquid around in the glass and observe the “legs;” the size and the width of the legs, paired with the speed at which they move down the sides of the glass, can tell a couple of things about the wine.  While some believe that more legs equal a better wine, in reality it is rather a direct correlation to the alcohol and sugar content of the wine you are observing.  Thin, quickly-moving legs point to a wine that is lighter in body, lower in alcohol, and without residual sugar, whereas thicker, slow legs are a determinant of a fuller-bodied wine that has a higher alcohol content.

So always, when you are looking for a spectacular wine to enjoy, take the time to really look at what you have in front of you.  Although it seems like a lot, the process really should only take about 30 seconds.  And you will not be sorry that you took that half a minute to evaluate the look of the wine.  It can tell you a lot about the wine before you move on to the next important aspect of wine tasting:  the smell.

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So what, you may ask, is a food hall?  It is like a public market, but it is more.  It is a comparable to a food truck, but it is more.  It shares similarities with a mall food court, but it is more.  It is an extended galleria of local vendors, convened for the same purpose—to sell their craft to consumers.  Local, sustainable shop ranging from soaps to cheese to fish to beef, and everywhere in-between.  Restaurants, artisan bakeries, coffee shops, wine and beer stalls, butchers, produce grocers, and much more, all under one roof, where vendors are eager to talk to customers, to share the stories behind their craft.

Food halls, though, aren’t a new concept.  They have been a staple in Europe, Japan, and other places throughout the world.  But in America, we were drawn to the convenience of “fast food” or to the elegance of “fine dining,” and therefore there was no need for any sort of food hall in our culture.  A shift is being made, though, as we are developing a hunger for authentic, homegrown products, real food that we can connect to via the farmers who grow produce without chemicals or even to those who raise livestock in a humane manner.   Food halls give us the opportunity to feed that hunger.

Also, according to the New York Eater, food halls are “another sign of an urban and culinary renaissance that’s happened over the past decade,” that food markets and restaurants have been successful when they are a “destination” for consumers. Customers can find every gourmet food item imaginable, all in the same place, all ready to eat at communal dining areas or ready to take away and be prepared at home.    A food hall is a haven for artisanal and specialty purveyors, buzzy food stalls and upscale restaurants, and as Anthony Bourdain, American chef and television personality, tells M Live, “I think there’s a real appetite for more low-impact, more casual, yet good-quality meal options.  That goes along with a shift in dining habits in general.  On one hand we demand more variety, better quality, more options.  On the other, we seem fatigued with the conventions and time investment of a multi-course, full-service meal.”  So really, we aren’t heading in a direction opposite of convenience, but rather in the direction of local vendors and restaurateurs available to us in one single location.

In short, the food hall trend catching fire across the United States will allow consumers to shop for groceries, for toiletries, for beer, for wine, that is grown or made locally, while also having the option to dine on meals of the same quality.  When all is said and done, who won’t appreciate the convenience?

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Evidence of early wine-making reaches back to somewhere before 6000 BC, likely in China, and became widespread not long after. While it is known that “the earliest realization of the delights of wine has not been dated,” it is reasonably understood that the encounter with fermented grapes was a certainty—the yeast on the skins of the grape make fermentation unavoidable. In ancient times the key would have been to consume the resulting wine at the premium time…after the grapes had fermented but before the resulting liquid was turned to vinegar. Archaeologists believe that wine drinking started possibly earlier than 6000 BC but the oldest indication of wine production—an early version of a winery—was discovered in the “Areni-1” cave in Armenia, dating to about 4100 BC. There, archaeologists found fermentation vats, jars and cups for storage, and a crude wine press. The discovery suggests that it is probable that, like wine drinking, the technology also predates this site, although it is not a certainty.

Religious rituals utilized wine, more than likely, because of its mind-altering capability. The release of one’s inhibitions gave a sense of being near a deity, and the subsequent euphoria induced by drinking wine was related more to that nearness to a god than to the wine itself. As technology improved and trade increased, wine making expanded westward where its consumption “permeated all aspects of society: literature, mythology, medicine, leisure, and religion,” according to an article from Cornell University. Wine eventually became a valuable commodity, used as medicine, as a mind-altering substance, as a part of cuisine, enjoyed by the kings and royalty, by religious leaders and participants in religious ceremonies, as a remedy to comfort the depressed or to relax the agitated. Additionally, there are economic advantages to wine that extend into modern society: vines produce a crop with an ever-ready market…a permanent and probably increasing market is virtually guaranteed.

Today we use wine in many of the same ways as those in ancient times. Many religious rituals call for the use of wine, and there are numerous health benefits to sipping. And yes, it is still consumed for its mind-altering capability. But we also drink wine for pure enjoyment, relished for its complex taste and aroma, and for its ability complement a meal when properly paired.

With a history as rich and complex as the wine itself, it’s easy to see why this alcoholic potable has stood the test of time. And knowing how to appreciate the subtle nuances of wine, how to tease out the intricate aromas and flavors may enhance your enjoyment. Check back in the following weeks as we examine the basics of wine tasting, beginning with how its appearance plays a role in the overall wine experience.

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