Marglin on Taste

One aspect of wine that tends to confuse even many avid wine lovers is which glass one should use when. There are literally hundreds of different styles of wine glass. Riedel, a leading wine-glass maker, makes a different shape for almost every major red varietal — its newest offering is a special Tempranillo glass for Spanish wines.

The theory is that the shape of the glass will change the way the wine smells and tastes by affecting the way the aromas are presented to one’s nose and mouth. How true is this? Well, for the finest and most complex wines, there’s some merit to the idea — these wines have great depth of flavor and an enormous number of layers, and a good glass will allow your olfactory senses to navigate those layers more gracefully. But for most wines, slight differences in the shape of a glass will make little difference in the wine’s taste.

Big variations in shape do matter somewhat, which is why glasses designed for red wines and white wines have traditionally been different. Especially with big red wines, you want to be able to get your nose in the glass, and you want sufficient surface area for the wine to present its bouquet and aromas properly. But a smaller glass works for white wines, which tend to have fewer layers and more-focused flavors: one need not taste for breadth, but rather for depth.

Aside from size, the other factor affecting taste is the thickness of the glass. A truly thin glass will influence how the wine rolls into your mouth — by literally changing which molecules of the wine reach you first. The thinnest glasses can filter liquid, lessening the effects of sediment that might be in a red wine. But true thinness is quite expensive — the most rarefied, thinnest hand-blown glasses can cost more than $100 per stem. (And they’re so easy to break that I try not to look at them funny.)

But as the complexity of the wine decreases, so too does the need for fine glassware. At the end of the day, a beer mug, a jelly jar (especially those squat Bonne Maman jars), even a cartoon juice glass will deliver wine to your nose and mouth relatively well.

What is essential, I’ve found, is that your wine-delivery vessel actually be made out of glass. I have drunk wine from paper, plastic, styrofoam, aluminum, my hands, and any number of other substances, including wood, and I can conclude with some confidence that wine tastes significantly better in glass than in anything else. In fact, almost any other kind of container may change, if not harm, the wine’s intrinsic flavors. And drinking out of the bottle totally destroys the pleasure of smelling a wine on its way into your mouth. If you don’t believe me, do a taste comparison between a wine out of a “glass” glass and the same wine out of any other kind of container. You’ll almost certainly notice the difference.

Despite the magnificence of the wine-and-glass combination, I often observe people camping or at festivals trying to enjoy wine out of plastic cups. This is not the same wine experience. If you’re bringing wine on a picnic or a camping trip, please, I implore you: bring some kind of glass to drink it in. In these situations you’ll want something durable: Pyrex, or glass coffee mugs.

Another impediment to enjoying wine is something I encounter far too often: the undersized glass. At many wine festivals, including our own Boston Wine Expo, and even in some decent restaurants, the glasses are too small to get a good sniff of many of the red wines (with whites I find the small-glass syndrome less problematic). I would almost rather use a root-beer mug than one of those glorified shot glasses. Besides, there should be enough wine in the glass for you to get a full nose before each mouthful; ideally, a glass of wine should be more than half full, so that the wine leaps up and hits you as it gets close to your nose on every taste. This is why waiters at fine restaurants are quick to refill your glass. It’s not just so you’ll finish the bottle faster; it’s also to guarantee an ample amount of liquid for each sip.

If you’re at a restaurant, and you have ordered a nice red wine and they bring you small glasses, don’t hesitate to ask whether they have any nicer ones. If they do, they will bring them, and if not, at least you will have expressed your discontent with their existing stemware in a relatively gentle way.

At home, I suggest having two stem sizes — large for reds, slightly smaller for whites. Always err on the side of too big over too small, and try to keep your guests’ glasses slightly more than half-filled (unless they say they’ve had enough — in which case, conserve your wine). Out on the road, especially in outdoor settings, make sure you have something made of glass on hand. No other vessel will, ahem, cut it.

In preparation for my next column, on Oregon white wines, look for good 1998 or 1999 pinot gris from Willakenzie Estate, King Estate, or Chehalem, as well as pinot blancs, gewürztraminers, muscats, and rieslings. You can drink these robust young specimens in anything made out of glass, and they’ll be just fine.

When the white heat of the sun starts to make my brow drip, I want to be drinking cold, thirst-quenching liquids. This might seem to eliminate wine from consideration. With only a few exceptions, the trend in wines these days is to serve them room temperature, or slightly chilled. Standard wisdom has it that cold blunts flavors, limits complexity, and is generally not, er, cool.But wine has changed a lot in the past 30 years, and maybe the standard wisdom should change too. As you may have noticed, I am a big fan of New World wines — the accessible Californian- and Australian-style wines that are fruit-forward, smooth, and approachable at a young age. I find that a lot of them taste good cold, regardless of their color. At room temperature, many New World wines are almost too bold, too concentrated — some have too much fruit going on for their own good. I want some of those flavors to be restrained, and chilling can help. One of the magical experiences with wine is letting the cold juice linger in your mouth, warming and releasing new flavors.

It’s no surprise that white wines taste good cold. Most whites are meant to be served chilled; many New World whites, with their tropical and citrus flavors, benefit from a really good chill. With some of those flavors held in check you may find them more palatable, more likable — and more refreshing, for sure.

With reds, serving wine cold is a little more controversial. To traditionalists, the idea of chilling red wines may sound like pure heresy. But it’s not. In America wine is often served too warm anyway; “room temperature” in Europe means about 60 degrees, not the 70-degree indoor temps that are normal here. And restaurants are not exempt from “warmatoma” — I am often presented bottles of white that are too warm for my taste, and bottles of red that should be too warm for anyone’s.

During the summer, I like to take the cold trend even further. I tend to serve reds, especially the younger and fruitier reds, with a bit of chill on them. Some time in the fridge (or, as a last resort, the freezer or ice for a minute or two) will get your average bold New World wine into a state where it’s muted a bit, clipping some of that forward flavor. I find this works well with red zinfandels and syrahs, plus Rhône wines such as grenache, mourvèdre, and carignane. It also works with younger, fruitier pinot noirs. Cabernet franc and sangiovese blends can take a touch of cold. (However, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, which tend to be drier to begin with, can lose almost all their fruit if they get cold.)

Even with a fruity wine, you don’t want to chill it down too much: this can damage the wine, or mute it to the point where it’s no fun to drink. And in general, the older a red wine gets, the less cold it can tolerate. Personally, I’ll chill zinfandel, shiraz, and Rhône varietals in the fridge for a couple of hours, but pinot noirs, Italian and Spanish reds, and cabernet francs for considerably less time. And when I do chill cabernet sauvignon and merlot, it’s just for a few minutes, to bring the bottle down to about 60 degrees.

You may have your own preferences. So try this experiment. Buy two bottles of any one of this week’s recommended reds, and chill one of them. Serve the other at whatever your own room temperature happens to be, and compare and contrast them.

What you will find is that loads of fruity New World wines become more focused and more precise when cold, and then their flavors expand gently as they warm. The wines will refresh you and your guests. And most wines should keep better and longer in the fridge once opened. Bear in mind that wine is juice, and most of us drink our juice cold. The following wines are what I consider to be good juice — they are well worth trying, warmer or with the right degree of cold.

1998 Cline Syrah California ($10.99). Bright, sunny syrah — a cracked-peppery, tomato-basil wine.
Fine with tofu (or hot) dogs or grilled swordfish.

1997 Beaulieu Vineyard Zinfandel Napa Valley ($14.99). Jammy, stewy, well saturated with true zinny flavors. Should work well with Mexican or
barbecue.

1999 Seresin Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough New Zealand) ($22). Hammer on! The sémillon in the blend lends balance and depth to the normal grapefruity varietal character. Rocking now, but should age gracefully for a few years yet. Serve with shellfish, paella, pea soup, or a spicy pizza.

1997 Hess Collection Zinfandel Napa Valley ($24). Wonderful fruit, big berry flavor. Full-bodied, great with pasta salad, honey-mustard chicken, or even a basic burger. A beautiful wine from the Western hills above the town of Napa.

1998 Ojai California Syrah ($25). Another win for the Tolmach winemaking family. Blueberry, beautiful balance. Works well with big meats like venison, or any mahi-mahi that is grilled. A fine wine for spicy foods, like Indian or burritos.