Some Thoughts About Wine Glasses

It has long been one of the small absurdities of civilization that we care so much about the shape of the vessel in which we pour fermented grape juice. A thirsty ancestor once drank wine from a hollowed-out gourd, smacked his lips, and thought, that’ll do. Today, entire conferences of stern-faced experts convene to argue whether Pinot Noir ought to be served in a bowl the size of a fishbowl or merely a very large goldfish bowl. The result is an industry that produces more varieties of glassware than there are actual wines to drink.

The theory goes like this: the glass determines how the wine behaves, how aromas rise, how the liquid lands on your tongue, how tannins announce themselves, how acidity pirouettes. Some say this is science; others call it theater. Both are right. If you swirl a Cabernet Sauvignon in a vast balloon-shaped glass, the aromas gather and leap at your nose like enthusiastic terriers. Pour the same wine into a straight-sided tumbler and the aromas sulk in the corner. The glass, in other words, is less a container than a stage.

Reds supposedly prefer large bowls, to allow oxygen to unlock their secrets. Whites do better in narrower vessels, to keep them chilled and focused. Sparkling wines used to be served in coupes, those shallow saucers beloved by flappers, until someone noticed the bubbles disappeared faster than morals at a costume party. Now we use flutes, which keep the effervescence disciplined, though there is growing rebellion in favor of tulip shapes, where bubbles and aromas can coexist without scandal. Dessert wines arrive in smaller glasses, because their sweetness is best enjoyed in whispers rather than monologues.

And yet, for all this choreography, the truth is simple: wine will taste better in a glass designed for it, but it will still taste like wine in a mug, a jar, or—if circumstances demand—a plastic cup at a picnic. The glass enhances but does not create. A poor wine in a crystal chalice is still a poor wine; a glorious wine in a chipped kitchen tumbler remains glorious, if slightly humiliated.

Of course, manufacturers of glassware insist otherwise. They release “research” showing how their vessel makes Riesling taste fruitier, Shiraz taste bolder, Chardonnay taste more like your grandmother’s orchard at dawn. One suspects that, were they allowed, they would market a unique glass for each vineyard row, each slope of each hillside, until we were drinking one bottle of wine from seventeen slightly different goblets.

What is worth noting, though, is ritual. To lift a fine wine glass, thin as a soap bubble, is to feel anticipation. The stem encourages you to hold the glass delicately, as though the wine were fragile and noble. The bowl invites a swirl, which releases aromas. The whole performance slows you down, makes you notice, forces you to behave as if the moment matters. This is not nothing. Drinking wine is half about the wine and half about the mood, and a good glass can manufacture mood better than most poets.

So yes, the glass matters, but not as much as some would have you believe. Use the right shape if you can, improvise if you must, and don’t let anyone shame you for pouring excellent Burgundy into a jelly jar. The wine itself will forgive you, though it may raise an eyebrow. After all, the glass is only the frame; the wine is the painting.