Riedel 試酒會
I have recently joined a wine tasting event organized by Riedel. To say it is a wine tasting event, I think it is more proper to call it a glassware tasting since the purpose of the event is not to taste different wines, but to see how the use of different glassware affects our tasting experience.
I always put great emphasis on glassware. When going out to dine, I almost always bring my own glassware to ensure I’m getting the best from my wine. For this reason, I don’t think I need this event to convince me the importance of using proper glassware. However, I have to confess this event is of real fun since I actually haven’t seriously tried out the difference of using different glasses.
Before talking about this Riedel event, maybe it worths for me to explain a bit why glassware could make a significant difference in your tasting experience. First of all, the size and the shape of the glass affect how the wine interact with air and how its aromas will be released and reach our nose. Nose is more sensitive to different aromas and flavours than our mouth. When we drink wine, we actually sense most of the flavours by using our nose instead of our mouth. If you don’t believe, you just need to stop breathing when you drink and then you will notice how much less flavours you can pick up. This is also the reason why when one got a cold, the ability to pick up different flavours is severely affected.
The second reason why glassware plays a significant role in our tasting experience is that our tongue got different sensitivity in its different parts. For example, the tip of our tongue is more sensitive to sweetness. For this reason, the shape of the glass can control where the wine will reach our tongue’s area to emphasize or de-emphasize certain characteristic.
Test One: Sauvignon Blanc
Joker Glass
The first wine to be tested is a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. The characteristics of this wine is that it is highly aromatic and unoaked white wine.
When the wine is inside the Riedel glass designed for Sauvignon Blanc, the wine reflects what it should be, i.e. pure, refreshing and highly aromatic. However, when the same wine is poured into the joker glass, all its aromas and flavours are gone in both its nose and palate. The wine also became too acidic and unbalanced. It is hard to believe they are the same wine.
Test Two: Pinot Noir
The left one is Riedel glass for Oaked Chardonnay and the right one is Riedel glass for Pinot Noir
The second wine for testing is a Pinot Noir from New Zealand. This is also a wine that is highly aromatic (although not as aromatic as Sauvignon Blanc) with medium level of tannins.
When it is inside the Riedel glass for Pinot Noir, the wine shows good intensity of aromas and has a very firm structure with adequate (but not too much) tannins. Although the shape of the Montrachet (Oaked Chardonnay) glass looks similar to the one for Pinot Noir, the wine loses a lot of aromas in the Montrachet glass. The level of tannins also seems excessive and unbalanced. When the same wine is poured into the glass for Sauvignon Blanc, it is even more worse. All the aromas are gone and the wine became very simple lacking complexity.
Test Three: Cabernet Sauvignon
Test three is using a Cabernet Sauvignon from the United States. This wine should be showing very ripe and sweet fruits with strong vanilla flavours.
As expected, the wine shows the best in the Riedel glass designed for Cabernet Sauvignon. However, when the wine is poured into Sauvignon Blanc, it became a completely different story. The wine became very flat, too sweet and too tannic.
Test Four: Whisky
Left one is Riedel Whisky glass. Right one is ordinary rocks glass.
In Riedel glass, the whisky is very floral with aromas of honey and orange peel. It has a very attractive nose, When using the rocks glass, the wine just show basic malt aromas and feeling quite alcoholic.
Buying Tips
(1) If you just mainly drink one type of wine such as Bordeaux, then it is easy. Just pick the glass designed specifically for that type of wine. However, if you drink almost every type of wine like myself but just want to buy one glass, then I would suggest you buy a Syrah glass if you are a red-wine lover. If you are a white wine lover, then your choice would depend on whether you drink oak white more or unoaked white more. For oaked white, wine glass designed for Montrachet is recommended. For unoaked white, wine glass designed for Sauvignon Blanc is recommended.
(2) If you are more serious and don’t mind to buy more wine glasses for different purposes, then you can buy these five types of glass. They should be sufficient. They are Cabernet Sauvignon glass (which can also be used for Sangiovese), Pinot Noir glass (which can also be used for Nebbiolo), Syrah glass, Oaked Chardonnay glass (for all oaked white wine) and Sauvignon Blanc glass (for all unoaked white wine).
(3) Riedel got many different series with huge difference in price. The most expensive one is Sommelier Series Black Tie which is about HK$1,000 for one wine glass. While the wine may show slightly better by using the more expensive one, I don’t think the difference is that big. Personally, I use Vinum series and only use Sommelier Series for Pinot Noir (which is my favorite grape).
(4) Other than Riedel, Spiegelau and Zweisel are also very good glassware producers.
(5) There is a Riedel application on iPhone which you can easily find suitable wine glass for different wines.