ok, anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a self professed Wine-O.... I love wine. I do, I can't help it. I guess it started when I would go to the ABC store with my Grandmother YEARS ago to help her buy the wine we use at Communion in church (we are Episcopalian). I loved the smell of it, and the taste, even though we were given just a sip.
I digress. Back to the wine. Red is my favorite with Pinot Noir, Cabernet, or Zinfindel (not the white zin crap) being my top choice. After a couple of bad experiences with white wine, I layed off it for a while and I think psyched myself into thinking I didn't like white wine. Slowly, as more vinyards and vintages are coming on the market, I am overcoming my so called 'hatred' of white wine.
Its not just the taste and smell and the feeling the wine leaves you with that are attractive to me. I love that wine is a social thing; sitting on the back porch with amazing friends and a stellar bottle of wine on a beautiful night is my idea of a perfect time!
I also have a secret (and somewhat snobby) love of stemware.
For those of you who don't drink wine out of anything other than a plastic Dixie cup or a wine glass you purchased at Wal-Mart for $0.50, allow me to let you in on a bit of stemware knowledge: There are wine glasses for the different varietles. i.e.- Cabernet Sauvignon has a different shaped 'bowl' than Chardonnay. The differing shapes, subtle as they are, has to do with, in laymans terms, the best way to show off not only the 'legs' of the wine (pretains to alcohol content) but also the releasing of the 'nose' or 'bouquet' of the wine (just like you would think, how the wine smells).
Bordeaux wines (wines from that region of France), for instance, are generally 'big' wines; meaning they need to be decanted and allowed to breathe (allowing the wine to come to room temperature and come in contact with oxygen thus releasing the true full flavor of the wine). Generally you will see Bordeaux wine glasses with big, deep 'bowls', this is so you can swirl the wine, allowing maxinum contact with oxygen (thats what people are doing when they swirl the wine in their glass...they aren't just being pretentious). Conversely, a wine such as a Viognier (a white wine that is slightly sweet with slight floral undertones) doesn't need to be swirled a great deal in order to taste the minutia of the wine; therefore, the bowl of the wine glass is smaller.
ok, enough learnin' for now, lets get to the drinkin'. While I am a wine snob, I say drink what you like ! Just cause I like it, doesn't mean you will, and vice versa. (but be open to tasting lots of different things, you never know what you will like, or not like till you try it)
Just cause you won't (or at least VERY rarely) catch me drinking out of anything other than a Riedel wine glass, don't think I'm gonna judge you for drinking out of a Dixie cup. But remember, what you drink out of affects the true taste of the wine.
I have always been told by wine professionals that what you drink out of DOES affect the taste of wine...not really being one to believe EVERYTHING people says, I decided to try this theory out. I bought a mid-priced bottle of red wine (that I was familiar with and knew the taste of). I lined up a styrofoam cup, a plastic Dixie cup, a cheap (wal-mart $0.50 special) wine glass, a Schott Zwiesel (non-lead) wine glass, and a Riedel (leaded) wine glass - poured 1 oz of wine into each container - and tasted each, taking a drink of water in between each glass as to cleanse the pallet. Just as the wine experts has said, there was a marked difference in the taste of the wine; mainly because each vessel added contaminating qualities.
Since wine is not just a taste thing, and you taste partly with your nose, I would call this phenomena Olfactory Polution.
Styrofoam has a distinct smell, altering the smell and therefore the taste of the wine; same with the Dixie cup. The cheap wine glass didn't offer enough room in the bowl to swirl properly and the glass was just thick. ugh. The Schott Zwiesel glass was markedly thinner than the wal-mart special, the bowl was 3 times the size/volume and allowed for maxium swirling. The main difference in the Schott Zwiesel and the Riedel wine glasses are minute. To the naked eye, little can be seen that would set these two apart from each other.
Schott Zwiesel is a German company that has patented a way to make thin glass unbreakable, scratch resistant and dishwasher safe. The glasses are machine made and virtually indistructable.
Riedel is handmade in Austria, and as a major downfall, VERY fragile. They are blown by hand and thus can be made very thin.
I am a personal fan of Riedel, though Schott Zwiesel is slowly gaining in my preferences; mainly cause its expensive to replace broken Riedel.
Schott Zwiesel and Riedel both can be purchased at Williams-Sonoma, at least thats where I get mine.
Try the little experiment that I did and let me know what your findings...you don't have to purchase Riedel (avg. $50.00/glass) or Schott Zwiesel (avg. $72.00, set of 6)....borrow some if you can or use your or your mother's wedding crystal, though I do highly recomment investing in some nice wine glasses.
Pour you a glass (and me one too!) ENJOY !
SALUT !
