It's all in the GLASS

Most of my emails focus on what is IN your glass, but this one will focus on the not so obvious--the glass itself. I have long been a Riedel wine glass fan and have glassware to match many of our favorite wine varietals. If you go to Riedel's website, you will see they have hundreds of choices at many different price points. The 4 types we have are the "Wine" series (glass, machine made, avg. retail would be around $10) the "Vinum" series (lead crystal, machine made, average retail of around $20) the "O" series (stemless, glass, probably $20 or so for 2?) and finally the "Sommelier" series, which are hand-blown lead crystal and can cost over $80 each! What's the big deal? PLENTY!
As noted in the past, we have only 5 primary taste 'senses' (salty, bitter, sweet, sour and "umami", which can loosely be translated as 'protein'). While we're not as proficient as Spike the wonderdog at smelling, we humans can pick up over 10,000 nuances of smell. Again you ask, what does that matter? To truly enjoy the wine (and specific attributes of a particular varietal) a wine glass can 'make or break' a wine. Take your favorite red wine (or a white wine that's not too cold) and put it in a drinking glass, a cheap wine glass, one of those silly Waterford crystal wine glasses you got for a wedding gift (pretty, but useless) and take a sip from each. If your last glass happened to be a nice stem (Riedel is nice, but try Cost Plus World Market for some inexpensive clones) you will be blown away at the difference! If you have different shaped wine glasses, take it a step forward-a cabernet glass is usually upright and tapered, a pinot noir glass is more rounded with a big bowl. If you tried the cabernet in both glasses you may be surprised how much better it is in the true cabernet glass versus the big bowled pinot. All I can say is TRY IT and you will be amazed! Go for the proper shape and no heavy 'rim' around the glass (think of that rim as a 'speed bump' messing up the flavors).
Final shot-what is the achilles heel of this entire exercise? How clean is that glass? If you store glasses in a cabinet, top down or over a stove, you will not get the full effect of the wine. Make sure to rinse the glasses prior to drinking them as you will smell less of the wine but more of where it was stored, such as the 'wood' of the cabinet (or grease if over the stove). Try smelling the empty glass 1st or put a bit of wine in the glass--you may see what I mean. Then rinse it out and try again and you will smell the wine, not the cabinet! Too much soap residue can ruin your wine experience as well. Cheers!