WINE-GLASS LOVE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 15 (Supplement)

WINE-GLASS LOVE

RIGHT AND WRONG SHAPE CARE IN CHOICE NEEDED Do you know that more than a sense of what is attractive is needed when you choose tho glassware for the table? asks an English writer. In these days when connoisseurs of wines, ami fine old wines themselves, arc a rarity, little thought is given to the right shape of glasses, but there is a right and wrong shape,, and—even if your cellar is not stocked with the “aristocrats” of wines, it is as well to know the rights and wrongs of table glasses. The wrong shape for a wineglass is one whose rim curves outward, like that of a flower vase; another wrong shape is that which resembles a small tumbler on a foot. The reason for this is not merely idiosyncrasy, but the practical fact that a spreading out glass scatters the bouquet of tho wine put into it, so that much of it as lost. The right shape for a wineglass is the goblet shape, with sides that curve outward and than begin to converge toward tho top, so that tho rim is narrower than thp bowl. This holds the bouquet and directs it towards the nose. In fl good wine the bouquet is as important as the actual drink, and the connoisseur will always pass tho glass slowly backwards and forwards under his noso before drinking, in order to get the full flavour. Tumblers and vase-shaped glasses are all very well for ordinary drinks, that arc drunk for their thirst-quenching qualities rather than tho delicacy of their flavour. Larger glasses and tumblers almost suggest, with their widelygaping mouths, that they should be

emptied at a gulp, but the in-curving rim of a wine-glass has something secretive about it w as though its contents were to be drawn from it gradually and lingeringly.