His basic point was that using good glassware such as Riedel or Spiegelau was a wee bit of overkill for your general bar wines and he would just as soon have it in your bog standard bar wine glass.
I completely and utterly disagree with this stance.
I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a Riedel glass master class not long ago. I know some folks might argue that the class would be the perfect opportunity to pull the proverbial marketing wool over my ears & nose, but bear with me.
I have been a Riedel glassware fan for more than 20 years, so it is not as if I came into this a complete newbie, I saw it as a serious educational experience. Set before me were four of the primary Riedel glasses (Bordeaux/Big Red, Burgundy/Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Aromatics) and the fifth glass being the ISO (International Standards Organization) glass. The ISO glass is the one all of you will have encountered if you have done any wine tasting at most wineries’ cellar doors and the glass that, until recently, has been the dominant glass used in wine competitions all over the world.
I was first poured a representative sample of each wine variety in the Riedel glass and after careful sniffing, swirling & tasting, I was asked to pour the residual wine into the ISO glass and repeat the process. Talk about chalk & cheese on steroids! It was almost impossible to identify the wine in the ISO glass as even a third cousin of the wine I sniffed and tasted out of the Riedel glass. The key reason for this is that more than 80% of what we ultimately taste in a wine comes from our olfactory senses (your nose) and the Riedel glassware (and other good glassware) excels at allowing the wine to breath and interact with the oxygen in the air (via gentle swirling) which enables it to better release its vinous ethers. So, in my humble opinion, better glassware will clearly enhance the wine experience, even for the everyday drinkers listed below. Cheers!
Some Great Recession Reds…
Waterwheel Memsie Red 2007 Bendigo
This is one of my all time favourite every day, every week, anytime red wines – just fantastically delicious to drink and almost hard to stop at one bottle! A blend of Shiraz (70%), Cabernet Sauvignon (16%), Malbec (6%) and Petite Verdot (6%), this wine has wonderful, chewy, mouth filling body with oodles of perfectly ripe up front fruit, with a luscious, persistent finish. Max Allen from Australian Gourmet Traveller could not have said it any better or more succinctly – “BARGAIN…ludicrously cheap…drink with a big T-bone steak.” $13
O’Leary Walker ‘Blue Cutting Road’ Cabernet / Merlot 2006 Clare Valley
David O’Leary & Nick Walker have separately been making wine for well over 20 years when they decided to join forces in 2001. They have a pretty simple and straightforward goal - source the best grapes from the best vineyard sites and craft great wine, which they do in spades and at very affordable prices.
O’Leary Walker’s 2nd label gets its name from a road hand dug in the Clare Valley by Polish settlers. Like the Waterwheel Memsie above, a rich, fruit driven wine that does not at all disappoint on the palate. It oozes blackcurrants with hints of chocolate. A pleasure to drink that will not make too big a dent in your wallet. $16
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