Tag Archives: Riedel

Flute or Wineglass for Your Bubbles?

If you hang out with wine buffs, you know they’re always debating something. The current dispute: whether Champagne and sparkling wines should be served in an elegant Champagne flute, or a crystal wineglass.

It’s a first-world problem, for sure. I’ll state my position up front: I love my flutes. They’re  Me sniffing

fun, they’re elegant, and the wine’s subtle aromas travel right up to my nose when I drink from a flute. Some experts say the narrow opening makes it difficult to stick your nose down into the glass, but look at this photo – my schnoz fits just fine!

Would the bubbles tickle my nose and make me giggle if I drank bubbly from a wineglass? I think not.

But it seems I’m in the minority these days. A survey by Decanter.com concluded that almost 58 percent of readers prefer white wineglasses over flutes for their sparklers. The wider nose does give you more room for the all-important sniffing, and the larger surface area allows more bubbles to release their aromas simultaneously, so your sniff delivers more of a wallop – so they say.

Experts are weighing in, and some of the most prestigious Champagne producers and sommeliers are using wineglasses for their sparklers. I asked a Cleveland friend and wine authority, Gary Twining, CWE, SWE, for his take on the issue. Gary was characteristically diplomatic: “Medium-sized crystal glasses to enjoy Champagne and sparkling wines are certainly appropriate,” he said. “White wine glasses that taper inward at the rim to focus scents are perfectly fine, as are flutes made specifically for sparkling wine. Both hold enough to enhance the aroma and bouquet.”

Even Maximilian Riedel, CEO of the iconic glassmaker Riedel Crystal, told Decanter.com two years ago that his goal was to make flutes “obsolete.” But a quick look at Riedel’s website shows the company still sells flutes – with stems and without. (Holding a bubbly-filled flute in your paw? Now there’s a wineglass travesty, don’t you think?)

Popular history credits our favorite monk, Dom Perignon (b. 1638), with inventing the flute so he could “watch the dance of the sparkling atoms.” I’ll concede that, for older sparkling wines with more complex flavors and aromas, the flute might “restrict the development of the wine,” as one Glass of Bubbly writer put it. But how much? I tested the theory in the review below.

Now the trend seems to be toward different glasses for specific sparkling wines. A handy chart at WineFolly.com will keep you au courant: a flute, they say, is best for Crémant (sparkling wine produced in France, but not in the Champagne region), Cava (Spain’s version of quality sparkling wine) and Brut, Extra-Brut and Brut-Nature. A “tulip glass” works for Prosecco (Italian sparkling wine) and sparkling rosé, and the newer wide-tulip Champagne glass, the bubbles–specific chalice that most resembles a white-wine glass, is best for aged sparkling wine – vintage Champagne, Franciacorta and Gran Reserva Cava. It’s essentially a compromise, with a wider opening than a flute but less of a bowl at the core, so bubbles cluster in a sort of tunnel as they rise to the top.

You get all that? Don’t worry. Just keep drinking the best wine you can afford – sparkling or not – and try to buy glasses that will do it justice.

So, do you like your bubbles in a flute, or a white wine glass? Leave a comment below – the wine world wants to know where you stand!

Wine Lingo of the Day: Late-disgorged = a Champagne or sparkling wine that rested on its lees (the sediment that gathers in the neck of the bottle) longer than other sparkling wines produced by that winery. The extra time aging on the lees before the sediment is disgorged, or removed, is said to give the wine stronger, more complex flavors. Late-disgorged bottles are more expensive than earlier releases of the same wine, often costing at least twice as much.

Vino ‘View:  We can see why an earlier version of Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvée 2007, Late 

GF Cuvee

Disgorged, Carneros (12 percent alcohol, $37) was once poured for King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia of Spain. The glass made a difference: in a wineglass we tasted slightly less fruit, but a tart apple/melon peel taste emerged. The nose tingle didn’t happen, but the wine fizzed on our tongues, showing super acidity, and left a long celery finish. In the flute, the green apple aroma was stronger, leading to a sharper, banana and white pepper taste. It opened to a sweeter, more concentrated apple taste, a little yeasty, with a touch of taffy and a lot of silk – and plenty of fine, assertive bubbles. Made with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, this wine definitely is suitable for royalty! 

[The Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvée was received by BigSexyReds.com for review.]

Happy sipping,

Mary

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The Art of Wine Tasting

If you’re going to learn about wine, you have to know how to taste it. That doesn’t mean tossing back a big gulp of vino and deciding whether you like it; there are steps and dimensions to tasting, and they get pretty involved. Tasting correctly has nothing to do with whether you enjoy a particular wine; it’s your vehicle for describing the wine to others – and one of the best places to appreciate that process is The Winemakers Studio in Livermore Valley, California, part of the iconic Wente Vineyards.

I was there with other bloggers attending the Wine Bloggers Conference in August, and we got an up-close look at “all the critical decision points a winemaker goes through every day,” our guide told us.

One of the most important aspects of tasting wine is detecting its various smells. Our first session was the Wine Aroma Experience, pictured above, where we took whiffs of pure essences that could have been any fruit, bark, seed, nut, vegetable or spice, and tried to match them with the actual samples on the table. The idea was to “reach back into our memories and bring back experiences” we associate with those smells. Fruits and spices are easiest for me, but spices always trip me up.

Our next stop was Wine & Food Pairing, with a twist: instead of pairing foods with two different wines, we sipped two vintages of the same wine – a 2014 and 2015 Semillon by Cuda Ridge Wines. I’d never tried pairing foods with different vintages of the same wine before, and was surprised at how they influenced the foods differently.

Pairing photo

For starters, the wines looked different – the 2014 was watery-white, while the 2015 had more of a corn-silk hue. Tasting both with crab salad, the 2015’s minerality came through much more than the older wine, which was more mellow with a strong pear taste. With the brie, the 2014 was predictably richer and “bigger” than the 2015, which was noticeably more tart, cutting into the creamy brie taste.

We went on to “Size & Shape Matters,” a session showing how a glass can influence the aroma and taste of the wine. I’ve written on this (and probably will do a blog post on glasses at some point), so I knew the wine in the crystal Riedel glass would taste much smoother and more expensive than the same wine in what the instructor called the “Outback Steakhouse glass.”

Our last class was a blind tasting. Wine was poured into two black glasses – one white wine, one red – and we had to guess which of four varietals each wine was. The answers were Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon; I missed both because I didn’t think they would give us such obvious choices. I was wrong!

Classes at The Winemakers Studio are open to the public, but you have to book in advance at 925-456-2385. You can take one class or all four, or a special wine blending workshop. Our sessions were abbreviated; plan on one to two hours per class, and have fun with it!

Wine Lingo of the Day:  Fruit-forward = A wine is said to be fruit-forward when tastes of fruit dominate over all other tastes, such as oak, spices or smoke. Some use the term “fruit-driven.” The fruity taste will be most noticeable towards the front of your mouth.

Mark West Black, small

Vino ‘View: As summer ends, I’m not quite ready for the bold Cabs and Zins that I love, but I get a hankering for something red. The perfect compromise is 2014 Mark West Black Pinot Noir (13.5% alcohol, $13.99). The color is a dark wine-red – I once had a skirt that color; we called it “burgundy.” The wine is full-bodied for a Pinot, and I feel some heat as it goes down, though the alcohol level isn’t high. Aromas of smoke, dry leaves and blackberries remind me that fall is almost here, and the taste has a lot of layers – it’s fruit-forward with black raspberry flavor, then dark chocolate, black walnuts, black olives, smoke, and a slight peppery note emerge. There is, as they say, a lot going on in that glass.

Enjoy your holiday!

Mary

[Bottle shot courtesy of Mark West Wines. This bottle was sent by the producer to be reviewed.]