These days, people want a big wine glass to enhance their enjoyment of wine. ![]() The development of the universal tasting glass has given wine professionals across the globe confidence that they’re tasting wines in the best possible conditions.Big Wine Glasses aims to simplify and improve upon the wine glass buying experience. And, of course, they’re big enough for a standard single serving of wine when filled a third of the way up. Typically, universal glasses also have a long stem, so drinkers can hold the glass without touching the bowl, which warms it. It generally has a mid-sized bowl and tapered rim that’s wide enough to amplify the wine’s aroma, regardless of which variety is in the glass. That study identified the best attributes for a wine glass, and the universal wine glass was born. In 1999, German sensory scientist Ulrich Fischer called in a group of wine scientists and got them to taste and describe four wines served in different glasses. But nobody knew if these glasses were truly fit for purpose or not, and there were ongoing complaints that the glasses were better for reds rather than whites, and vice versa. What makes the universal wine glass universal?īy the end of the 20th century, several wine organizations like the IANO, the French body that oversees wine production, had developed standard wine tasting glasses for professionals to use at tastings and competitions. Yet, while varietal-specific glasses are still popular, it was the emergence of the universal glass that proved to be a game-changer. Not only that, but the emergence of varietal-specific glasses has led to new scientific studies of how the glass size and shape can impact the perception of aroma, flavor, and complexity. Today, the company offers more than 700 different glasses, and Riedel is one of the world’s biggest glass companies. “That was a product of the mid-20th century consumer culture.” “Riedel really capitalized on this phenomenon and invented this idea of different styles of glassware that could be used with different styles of wine,” Larson says. All the extra space allows more oxygen, which helps reveal Cabernet Sauvignon’s aromatics, while softening the wine’s bold tannins. Suddenly wine lovers had a specific glass to use for their Cabernet Sauvignon, quite different from the glass Riedel made for Chardonnay or Merlot.Ĭabernet Sauvignon glasses, for example, are taller, with a larger bowl. But the glass world was turned on its head in 1973, when ninth-generation Austrian glassmaker Claus Riedel launched a series of elegant glasses designed to highlight specific grape varieties’ nuances and character. Glassmakers had long made bigger glasses for red wine, and smaller ones for white. Glassware became something everybody could have. Glassware could now be made with machines, rather than by the more arduous process of mouth-blowing. And the industry was kicked into overdrive when automated glass blowing, created by the Owens Bottle Machine Company, was invented in America in 1903. The invention of the hotter coal furnace in the following years produced thicker, more durable glass then came the continuous furnace in 1867, which meant ovens could run day and night. The discovery of lead oxide in 1675 allowed glassmakers to create items with clarity. Later, Bohemia - an area of Central Europe that covered what’s now known as Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia - emerged as the frontrunner of the industry, according to a 2019 GuildSomm report. Glassmaking returned to Europe during the 1200s, with Venice as the hotspot for production. Photo courtesy of Corning Museum of Glass.Īfter the fall of the Roman Empire, glassmaking in Europe came to a halt, though not in the Middle East or Asia. Glassware on display at Corning Museum of Glass, Fire and Vine exhibit. ![]() “They start popping up during that era in the area that is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria - that area of the Eastern Mediterranean - and then that style of glass expands throughout the ancient Roman world and beyond.” ![]() “Sometimes they have handles sometimes, they don’t,” Larson says. Around 200 BCE, the Phoenicians invented the glass blowpipe, so glassblowers could now add handles, stems, and other decorations to their work.Īccording to Katherine Larson, a curator at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, goblets like the stemmed glasses we recognize as today’s wine glasses started to appear in the third and fourth centuries. By 500 BCE, people used vessels with a slightly curved, flat bottom and flared rim, almost like a cereal bowl, to drink wine. The idea of using it to make wine vessels dates as far back as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. People soon caught on that they could also produce glass, by applying fire to sand. ![]() Glass can occur naturally, thanks to lightning striking a beach, or a volcano spewing molten rock.
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