A wine is only as good as the glass it comes in

Back in 1988, when David Hulley was a winemaker in Niagara, he was invited to a tasting with an Austrian glass-maker who believed that the shape of his glassware changed the way wine tasted.

"What a load of garbage," Hulley recalls thinking. "But I had to go and see this circus sideshow."

So he travelled to Toronto, where the soon-to-be-famous Georg Riedel declared the universal glass "the enemy of wine" and proceeded to use the skeptics' own senses to transform them into a crowd of converts.

At the end of the evening, we were all ashamed of our ignorance and our arrogance," says Hulley, now an Ontario-based wine consultant who has led similar "glass tastings" on behalf of glass-maker Spiegelau.

Since then, Riedel (rhymes with "needle") has converted much of the world to his way of thinking and drinking.

Because most of our sense of taste is actually our sense of smell, varietally specific glasses are designed to enhance certain aromas. The bowl of a Pinot Noir or Burgundy glass, for instance, is wide but tapered at the top to trap and intensify the subtle aromas of cherry and plum, while a narrow Sauvignon Blanc glass creates a sort of chimney that propels tropical aromatics upward.

The glasses also tend to be bigger than the old universal glasses, both to emphasize aromas and to direct the liquid to the parts of the tongue where it will taste best -- not, for instance, the bitter zone at the back of the tongue, which is typically where a universal glass will deposit wine.

Now almost every reputable glassware company creates varietally specific glasses. There are dozens and dozens of different glasses available to go with the multitude of wines available around the world, from the Corsican Ajaccio to the German plum schnapps called Zwetschgenwasser.

"I've seen people pour Burgundy into a Bordeaux glass. It defeats the purpose of what the glassware is supposed to do," says sommelier Stephane Castera, noting that a tall, wide-mouthed Bordeaux glass would speed up oxygen absorption, effectively killing the delicate Burgundy.

Castera is now director of food and beverage at Yew Restaurant + Lounge in Vancouver's Four Seasons Hotel, where his staff uses a mixture of high- and mid-range Riedel and Spiegelau glassware for the more than 200 wines on the list, each of them available by glass or by bottle.

"When we have a wine of a certain quality, we use the Sommelier selection," he says.

"It's very expensive, but it's important if you spend money on a bottle of wine to use proper glassware. You can see the difference. You can really see the difference."

GLASSWARE PRIMER

Looking to stock up on glassware for the holidays? The minimum you should have are two red styles (one for Pinot Noir / Burgundy and one for Bordeaux / Cabernet Sauvignon), one all-purpose white, and one for sparkling wines.

Here are five brands to try:

The Original: Riedel Glass Works