Not only are wine glasses made largely of sand, they are a dime a dozen. If you enter the word wine glass into the Google search engine, you will get over 20 million clicks. With such an unmanageable array of different wine glasses and so much guide and advice, you can quickly lose your way.
Almost all wine glass makers work with a wide variety of different glass types. Glasses are offered for white and red wines or sparkling wines. There are also manufacturers who produce wine glasses specific to regions or even varieties, such as Bordeaux or Riesling glasses.
The most expensive is ten times more expensive than the cheapest.
Most manufacturers today also have a universal goblet, which is said to be suitable for all types of wine. However, the price differences are huge. Ikea’s machine-made Dyrgrip glass costs just 5.95 francs, while Josephinenhütte’s handmade Josephine number two glass costs ten times more. But do price, style and form really play such a big part when it comes to wine enjoyment?
To answer this question, an eight-person jury, including Master of Wine Ivan Barbic and top winemakers Francisca Obrecht and Urs Pircher, tested seven universal glasses from well-known producers. Although Riedel did not offer a universal glass, it nevertheless wanted to take part in the test and provided the Veloce Riesling glass. And now devoted to glassmaking, Bordeaux Papa René Gabriel put it to the test with machine-made StandArt glass, even though the glass in the hand-blown Gold Edition has long been out. Eight wine glasses were tested with eight different Swiss wines: one sparkling wine, three dry white wines (including an old Chasselas), three red wines, and one dessert wine.
Obrecht: «Delicate glasses add elegance to wine»
Evaluation: Each wine was given a number of points based on how they were expressed in the glasses. The same wine often scored differently in different glasses. The universal goblet with the highest score in all wines ensured the overall victory.
Jurors discovered major differences between wine glasses. The same goes for winemaker Francisca Obrecht, who supplied her own Brut Nature sparkling wine for testing: “The effect of the wine glass on wine is fascinating! And the feel is very important to me: Compared to rather coarse glasses, filigree, hand-blown glasses give the wine more attention and give it more attention. makes an elegant expression.»
Barbic: “Even drinking will be different”
Wine Master Ivan Barbic: “For me, tasting like this, comparing the same wine in different glasses, is always a revelation that a wine is not just a wine. It opens differently depending on the glass it is served in, and accordingly provides more or less drinking pleasure.»
Wine scholar Lidwina Weh sees a great influence on the appearance and shape of glasses: “Aesthetics and touch play an important role and also affect the subconscious mind, how sensitively a wine is perceived. Interestingly, tannins, acidity and carbonic acid in the same wine had a very different effect on the palate.
The biggest differences in sparkling wine
The difference between the various wine glasses was greatest for sparkling wine: the Riedel glass ranked first with an average score of 18.22, while the Ikea glass scored just 16.19. “Since carbonic acid plays an important role in the development of flavors and quality, the biggest differences are surprisingly not found in sparkling wines. Therefore, tapered glass spout glasses are best suited,” analyzes Barbic.
Among the red wines, the mechanical Gabriel glass wins…
In red wines (machine-made!), the Gabriel glass ranked first with an average of 17.59 points, while the last-placed Ikea glass was only half a point behind with 17.10 points. Pircher was not surprised by this narrow result: “The shapes of the glasses were very similar for the red wines.” Seeing the smallest deviations in red wines, Barbic said, “I felt the difference here the least.”
… Josephine is undefeated with the whites
Of the three dry white wines, Josephine was the most expensive glass in the test, with the highest score of 17.74. With 18.16 points, Josephinenhütte’s glass also took first place in dessert wine. Although Kurt Josef Zalto’s glass did not rise to the top of the red wines ranking, it was enough for a clear victory in the overall ranking with 17.66 points. Spiegelau’s universal glass Definition took second place on the podium with 17.57 points. It is practically equivalent to a Riedel glass with a score of 17.56. The seven products of the glass specialists were quite close to each other. Only Ikea took last place.