Wine glasses

[neanderpaul14]

Has anyone ever wondered about the specific shape and design of wine glasses? I personally am a beer drinker, who is now drunk. But I've often wondered why wine glasses are designed the way they are. They have a high center of gravity and seem to be made intentionally very breakable. Beer mugs have a very low center of gravity and are made very THICK, I mean I have been served beer in a mug that I could club a fellow bar patron with and then ask to be be refilled, without a crack in it. Is this a societal thing or is there actually a reason why wine glasses need to be elevated and delicate. BTW I have/will drink wine, although I usually prefer it in a large coffee mug.

[Lord Arioch]

Most likely cause we wine drinkers are snobbs ... sniff ....sniff:) and u beer drinkers are rednecks:)

Seriously no clue, but that is an intresting thought which i will most likely discuss next time im drunk... so thx for feeding my brain with junk thoughts

[mrswdk]

The stem is so that when you hold the glass you don't warm the drink up with the heat from your hand. The bulbous shape of the glass is something to do with keeping the wine fumes trapped in the glass.

The thin glass is so that wine drinkers can swirl the wine around the glass, watch it slowly slide back down and then make pretentious comments about how the wine they're drinking has a good body.

[Lord Arioch]

Gulp Gulp hiyyahh to summarize?

[KoolBak]

Rednecks drink wine too

[betiko]

The stem is so that when you hold the glass you don't warm the drink up with the heat from your hand. The bulbous shape of the glass is something to do with keeping the wine fumes trapped in the glass.

The thin glass is so that wine drinkers can swirl the wine around the glass, watch it slowly slide back down and then make pretentious comments about how the wine they're drinking has a good body.

this, but swirling the wine in the glass has a purpose, it's to give oxygen to it so that the flavours get stronger and you can actually get to smell them more powerfully. If you swirl it around and you see some thick drops sliding back down, it shows you that the wine is somewhat sweet (it would create larger wine drops). You can also move around the glass to see its colours from side to middle how it reacts to light.
So basically, if you're drinking a good wine, you're supposed to first smell it, anaylse its sugar %, look at its body then only after that you taste it.
Also, to apreciate a wine you're supposed to drink it in small quantities. In almost all the UK restaurants they serve you full glasses... that's extremely rude for wine enthousiasts.

[Donelladan]

I drink beer in elegant and fragile glasses.

http://img24.xooimage.com/files/c/6/6/k ... 9ab48c.jpg

[AndyDufresne]

I drink koolaid mostly.


--Andy

[mrswdk]

The stem is so that when you hold the glass you don't warm the drink up with the heat from your hand. The bulbous shape of the glass is something to do with keeping the wine fumes trapped in the glass.

The thin glass is so that wine drinkers can swirl the wine around the glass, watch it slowly slide back down and then make pretentious comments about how the wine they're drinking has a good body.

this, but swirling the wine in the glass has a purpose, it's to give oxygen to it so that the flavours get stronger and you can actually get to smell them more powerfully. If you swirl it around and you see some thick drops sliding back down, it shows you that the wine is somewhat sweet (it would create larger wine drops). You can also move around the glass to see its colours from side to middle how it reacts to light.
So basically, if you're drinking a good wine, you're supposed to first smell it, anaylse its sugar %, look at its body then only after that you taste it.
Also, to apreciate a wine you're supposed to drink it in small quantities. In almost all the UK restaurants they serve you full glasses... that's extremely rude for wine enthousiasts.

You need to stop eating at Wetherspoons pubs.

[patches70]

Yeah, wine drinkers are considered snobs and beer drinkers are rednecks, but then again we don't remember how important wine and beer was to human civilization. In the days of old in long forgotten times a person who just headed down to the stream and drank the water had a good chance of ending up dead. That's why people drank wine or beer all the time, because there was so little potable water. Not every place has crystal clear natural springs to drink from.

The first wines were probably a lot different than what we drink today, would probably taste like crap but it wouldn't kill ya. I went hiking up at Old Rag one day. Ran out of water. At the bottom of the mountain is a mountain stream. Nice clean cold water and it tasted so good. That was a bad mistake on my part as within about twelve hours or so I developed a bad case of explosive, projectile diarrhea. It was horrible and I had to go to the doctor right away. Untreated it would have killed me in a few days, my intestines just wouldn't absorb water because of a nasty little bug that is often found in water, even in clear mountain streams. Lesson learned, now I bring a twelve pack with me whenever I go hiking.

I don't drink wine, its not my cup of tea so to speak, but I can at least appreciate how important wine was for the development of human civilization. None of this would be possible if early humans hadn't figured out how to make wine. Without it the human race would have ended up dying out in shit splattered huts at the edge of a river or lake. Wine is not nearly as important now a days as it was for early civilization, but let us not forget just how much we all owe to the art of fermentation.

Oh, and beer is right up there along with wine in importance to civilization and we've known how to brew beer even before we learned how to make wine. The beers people drank in the days of old would put today's beers to shame. You could get a whole meal out of a mug of beer. Very hearty, nutritious and didn't give a person the deathly shits like the water at the local river would likely bestow upon some unfortunate consumer.

So let not any look down their nose at the connoisseurs of wine and/or beer, they are paying just tribute to the most important human inventions in the history of mankind that helped enable us to survive and thrive in a world where even the water would kill you horribly.

So drink and be merry! It was good enough for our ancient ancestors, its good enough for us today.


*Please drink responsibly, this message brought to you by Alcoholics R Us Inc.


As to the OP, the stem is as said to keep body heat from warming the wine. Same reason there is a handle on a beer mug. Of course, a good beer is drank warm, wines are often drank too cold, but whatever.
Its good to have a clear glass for drinking wine so you can check to make sure there are no toenails in your glass. American beer is served cold so people know they aren't drinking piss because you sure as hell often enough can't tell the difference from the taste.
The shape of the glass is important for the type of drink one is swilling. For instance, champagne is drank from a flute which is very narrow. This reduces the amount of surface area and thus preserves the carbonation of the champagne for a longer time. Any sparkling wine should also be consumed using a flute. This is also the original meaning of "he plays the flute every night". Such phrases have completely different meaning these days though, but if one wants to call a wine drinker a "flute player", seems legit.
Beer doesn't make much difference, you can use a dried out animal liver if you wanted to drink your beer from or a glass, mug or whatever one prefers. The object used to hold the beer to be consumed should be large, no need to sip beer as it is best when chugged like a Thai whore chugs...well, you get the picture.

I hope this answers all the OP's questions and puts beer swizzling and wine spitting into a new light for the uninitiated. To think, some people actually drink beer and wine just to get drunk. So crass. Everyone knows that today the purpose of beer and wine is to lower inhibitions so that ugly people can get laid or as a driving aid. A properly inebriated body is quite limber and serves to prevent serious injury in the event of a catastrophic car accident.

[AndyDufresne]

like a Thai whore

The more you know.


--Andy

[patches70]

like a Thai whore

The more you know.


--Andy

I meant to put this at the bottom of my post, there is a lot of good info in that post!

[betiko]

bullshit patches. may i remind you that our specie is over 200 000 year old while wine and beer were invented around 8 000 years ago?
We definitely had a stronger stomach back then.

[notyou2]

Rednecks drink wine too

My wife makes those as well as redneck martini and daiquiri glasses. They are great for the bicycle, she fills them, caps them and puts them in her saddlebags along with the Jaeger, shooter glasses, my rum, ice, blue tooth stereo, bug dope and our coats. She's the mule.

I use a stemless wine glass as I will knock over a regular one. I also drink my white wine room temperature so another reason I don't need a stem.

[betiko]

also... like americans are the only ones to drink their beer cold... The british drinking warm beer is a joke you know...
And wine is drank at temperate temperature, never cold (except for pink wine and some white wines)

[patches70]

bullshit patches. may i remind you that our specie is over 200 000 year old while wine and beer were invented around 8 000 years ago?
We definitely had a stronger stomach back then.

You apparently missed the point of the post. Ahh, well, so it goes. Some people have no sense of humor. Maybe the post was too dry. A wine drinker would know.

[tzor]

The wine stem has been covered already (your hand doesn't heat the wine).

The size of the glass has to do (with one exception) with oxidation. Red wine becomes more complex when exposed to oxygen (they call it letting the wine "breathe") so red wine glasses have more surface area. White wine doesn't need to breathe so the glass has less. And when you need to keep the bubbly in, it has even less.

(That one exception? Some Frenchmen thought of drinking Champagne from a glass modeled after Marie Antoinette or something like that. It is supposed to only be used for weddings. It has a wide area even though it is a white wine with carbonation.)

[betiko]

The wine stem has been covered already (your hand doesn't heat the wine).

The size of the glass has to do (with one exception) with oxidation. Red wine becomes more complex when exposed to oxygen (they call it letting the wine "breathe") so red wine glasses have more surface area. White wine doesn't need to breathe so the glass has less. And when you need to keep the bubbly in, it has even less.

(That one exception? Some Frenchmen thought of drinking Champagne from a glass modeled after Marie Antoinette or something like that. It is supposed to only be used for weddings. It has a wide area even though it is a white wine with carbonation.)

No the marie antoinette breath modeling for the champagne cup is a pure myth.
Regarding oxydation you are just repeating what I said.

[mrswdk]

also... like americans are the only ones to drink their beer cold... The british drinking warm beer is a joke you know...
And wine is drank at temperate temperature, never cold (except for pink wine and some white wines)

Everyone in the world drinks lager cold, because lager is just piss. Ales and other such beers are usually served at room temperature (although in China they generally just chill everything regardless).

[Dukasaur]

also... like americans are the only ones to drink their beer cold... The british drinking warm beer is a joke you know...
And wine is drank at temperate temperature, never cold (except for pink wine and some white wines)

Everyone in the world drinks lager cold, because lager is just piss. Ales and other such beers are usually served at room temperature (although in China they generally just chill everything regardless).

Ale is for rubbies. Civilized people drink lager.

[mrswdk]

also... like americans are the only ones to drink their beer cold... The british drinking warm beer is a joke you know...
And wine is drank at temperate temperature, never cold (except for pink wine and some white wines)

Everyone in the world drinks lager cold, because lager is just piss. Ales and other such beers are usually served at room temperature (although in China they generally just chill everything regardless).

Ale is for rubbies. Civilized people drink lager.

Old men eating kebab skewers on the pavement and spitting into the street drink lager.

[Lord Arioch]

Depends on what you are eating ... i never drink Spanish Lager except i spain then its wicked good...

One of my favourites is a strong malbec to meat yum yum

One other thing that ive been wondering about is why is the size of glass different between red and white wine? White glasses seems generelly to be smaller?

[betiko]

Depends on what you are eating ... i never drink Spanish Lager except i spain then its wicked good...

One of my favourites is a strong malbec to meat yum yum

One other thing that ive been wondering about is why is the size of glass different between red and white wine? White glasses seems generelly to be smaller?

probably because you don't need to oxydate white wine and to swirl it in the glass I'd say.

I love a good old fresh lager. I like getting a lot to drink without the feeling of being eating something while you're drinking.

[mrswdk]

In China it's traditionally been seen as kind of gross to go out just for the sake of drinking. People normally drink with and after a meal or in a karaoke club (where they'll have snacks as well).

Drink spirits with a rowdy meal, drink tea or wine with a more sedate meal. Drink beer when eating street food.

[Lord Arioch]

plain drink is also fun!