There are two things in the world I love almost as much as food; beer and wine! So how awesome is it that I have a good friend who works in the wine industry and invites me to cool events? The answer is, really freaking awesome.

Last night I attended a Riedel Vinum XL Tasting hosted by CEO Maxmillian Riedel. For those of you who don’t know, Riedel is the premier wine glass maker in the world. They are like the Rolls Royce of wine glasses and the goal of this event was to teach participants how different glasses effect the experience of different wines.

From left to right: Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvingon

We compared three different wines in three different glasses; Pinot Noir, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. In each and every case the wine was clearly best in its corresponding glass. When drinking the wine in the “wrong” glass you noticed that the wine that had lost of fruit suddenly became flat or the wine with the rich aroma of oak and vanilla suddenly had an unpleasant bitterness.

One of the most interesting parts of the tasting was at the end when Maxmillian said, “as wine drinkers, I’m sure you’ve been to plenty of tastings where you meet the wine maker and they ask you to sample their wines.” We all nodded. “And what,” he asked, “do they serve you their wines in? A plastic cup.” Maxmillian then asked us to pour our wine in to one of the plastic cups in front of us and smell and taste it. The change was unbelievable. It was as if the wine lost every single characteristic, good or bad, in the plastic.

Riedel does these wine glass tasting all over the country so if you don’t believe me you should sign up for one yourself and see. If you can’t get to a tasting at least try this; buy a nice bottle of wine. There are a lot of really nice wines out there for under $15 so you don’t have to spend a lot of money. Then pour some in to a small “white wine” glass, a larger “red wine glass” and a plastic cup and sniff, swirl and sip. You’re results probably won’t be as dramatic as drinking out our beautiful Riedel glasses, but I guarantee you’ll notice a difference.

Oh, and the best part, we got to keep the glasses!

“Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy.”
Alexander Fleming