Riedel does research and development to make wine glasses suited to each wine variety. Each new wine glass is developed in a workshop with the people who produce the wines and spirits to help design the glass to bring the taste and look of the wine or spirit to its full potential. The shape and size of the bowl directly influence the flow of the wine onto the tongue; to minimize the sweetness of a wine, the glass should allow the wine to spill across the side of the tongue where acidity is perceived, which in turn makes the wine more balanced. Try this experiment with a ten-dollar bottle of red wine: Pour some into any old goblet and some into a proper tulip-shaped crystal Bordeaux glass. Taste. I guarantee you'll think you're drinking two different wines. The glass you choose has a tremendous impact on your enjoyment of wine. Even unremarkable wines taste more elegant and refined when served in suitable stemware. And the finest wines are all but wasted if you drink them out of coffee mugs. The acquisition of excellent stemware is the first step towards improving your in-home wine experience.

The Four Essential Glasses

A respectable arsenal of stemware includes four glasses: a general-purpose white wine glass, two types of red wine glasses (commonly called Bordeaux and Burgundy) and a champagne flute. The white wine glass is small, in order to prevent the rapid warming that would occur in a vessel with more surface area. The Bordeaux glass (which is also appropriate for other hearty red wines, like cabernet and merlot) is larger, which allows for more development of the bouquet. Intuitively, you'd think a Bordeaux glass would be larger than a Burgundy glass, because Bordeaux is a "bigger" wine, richer and more fully flavored. But the Burgundy glass is the largest in any stemware collection exactly because Burgundy-type wines (such as pinot noir and other delicate varieties) are so subtle that they need a huge area in which to gather their aromas. The most notable feature of the champagne flute is that it's tall, to allow the proper development of bubbles.