stories:
The Juice
Hold Your Wineglass the Right Way
Get your grubby fingers off
People spend a lot of money on wineglasses—crystal stems for red or white, sparkling or dessert. But while fine glasses may add something to the enjoyment of what’s within, one thing that always affects your wine negatively is your grubby hands.
Look at the wine you’re drinking. Sight is the first sense engaged, and visual pleasure is not to be underestimated. A wine never looks good, however, when seen through a glass smeared with greasy fingerprints. Now, this may be more of a topic for Helena Echlin’s Table Manners column, but I feel I’ve got to take a stand: There is an epidemic of misheld wineglasses.
Others share my pain. The other day, the topic came up over lunch with some top sommeliers. “There is no occasion to hold the wineglass by the bowl,” agreed Richard Betts, master sommelier and cofounder of Betts & Scholl wines. “Stemless glasses ought to be abolished,” muttered Robert Bohr of New York’s CRU restaurant.
Ironically, Hollywood, so intent on appearance, is the most egregious offender. Some people get upset about smokers being depicted glamorously in movies, but I’m more likely to cringe over a wine-drinking scene. Inevitably the actors are gripping their wineglasses by the bowls, as if they’re cradling a cup of hot chocolate. Julia Roberts drank a lot of Champagne in Duplicity, and those flutes must have been crusted by her fingers at the end of every day of shooting. My wife, who teaches wine service at the Culinary Institute of America’s Napa Valley branch (and who emphasizes holding a glass properly), loved the show Sex and the City, but she told me, “It used to bother me that these sophisticated, elegant ladies, constantly drinking their Veuve Clicquot, would hold their glasses by the bowl.”
Even people who should know better have gotten into the act lately. Look at the bons vivants depicted in the new ad campaign for the Rhône Valley. You’d think a famous French wine region would have more pride. Even worse, check out the rapturous sommelier portrayed on this wine-tasting site.
Here’s the rule: Always hold a glass by the stem (here’s a visual). If you’re holding the bowl, in addition to the grease factor, your fingers will change the temperature of the wine, thus changing your sensation of it. The stemless Riedel O-series glasses are a nice attempt to make wine-drinking more casual—but in doing so, they degrade the wine that they’re meant to show off.
Now, I’ve gone on the record more than once about the fact that I enjoy occasionally drinking wine out of a tumbler, such as when we order pizza at home and I’ve got a simple, inexpensive Montepulciano d’Abruzzo on hand. Yes, it’s dirty, but that’s what tumblers and drinking at home are for. Nice wineglasses are different. In your home, practice holding the wineglass by the stem, so that when you’re out at a party or a restaurant or, mon dieu!, you’re in a Hollywood movie, you look like you know what you’re doing.
Here are two wines that look (and taste) lovely from perfectly clean wineglasses:
Philippe Gonet Champagne Rosé Brut, France—Few things in life are more visually delightful than a rosé Champagne, glowing pink in the glass. This wine is bursting with raspberry, strawberry, and floral notes, yet it’s elegant and crisp.
2008 Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino, Sardinia—One thing I love about good Vermentino is its color: golden straw, flecked with a tinge of green. It’s strange, but you almost feel as if you can taste this meeting of yellow and green. The yellow is expressed in fruit, ranging from apple to melon, and the green comes in as a touch of herbs and an almost briny minerality. As delicious a wine to look at as it is to taste.
I'm no sommelier, but my personal method is to hold whites by the stem and reds by the bowl. I know, I must have been born in a barn.
Thank you! It's nice to know I'm not alone in being annoyed by people who hold glasses by the bowl (seriously-- I've commented on stuff like this in movies, too!), and for my hatred for those stemless glasses.
I'm the opposite of ktb615, I hold my whites by the glass because they come out of my refrigerator too cold in my opinion. Reds I hold by the stem because they're already too warm, having not been chilled at all. At restaurants, I hold by the stem because they have them at the right temperature.
I can't imagine that the few seconds I am holding my glass at the base of the bowl (it feels off balance and awkward to hold it at the base of the stem) sends appreciable heat to the wine within the bowl, and if it does, I'm too much of a philistine to tell (especially with the wine I tend to drink). The grease factor makes a little more sense, but it seems we are concerning ourselves mightily with a trivial issue.
THANK YOU for this article Jordan!
I actually lost a friend over this-
She thought I came off as pretentious, but whatever.
My husband's getting the hang of holding the glass by the stem...
Now if I could only stop him from slurping his coffee (EEeeeek!) and sticking the whole knife in his mouth like a popsicle to lick off sauce....ugh, I shudder....
Peasents
There is NO correct way to hold a wine glass. Stem or bulb, it's only a beverage.
Cold white out of the fridge, cradle that bowl and warm it up. Likewise if a red is stored in a cellar that is a bit too chilly.
Wine has more then enough snobbery about it already. People should hold their wine glasses however they please.
Very well said, StriperGuy.
I agree with StriperGuy, regarding making too much of this, especially in casual settings. On the other hand, nothing is more pretentious than people who brandish their wine glass by holding the base pinched between their thenar eminence and their second finger, regardless of the situation.
the main point is sheer obsessiveness. In daily drinking a little smudge on the glass is hardly likely to reduce the enjoyment of the wine. Lots of other factors (a dark restaurant for example, a kid whining, an inappropriate food pairing, incorrect wine temp) are a lot more likely to detract from the full sensory experience.
Dflanz -- are you actually offended by people who hold their wine glass by the stem (i.e. "... nothing is more pretentious than people who brandish their wine glass hold the base...")? Sounds a little like the pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me.
I happen to agree with the author, holding wine glass by the bowl smudges and heats your wine up. As someone who enjoys all my wine at cellar temperature, this matters to me. To me this is like the BBQ argument -- people call braised pork butt BBQ if it has "BBQ sauce" on it, when it's clearly not. Similar issue, wine is not at its best at body temperature, as such there is a "proper" way to hold a glass to reduce conductive/radiative heat from your hand -- similarly, there is a "proper" way to BBQ, but most people think that's merely snobbery.
mateo, no problem regarding holding the actual stem. I was citing people who grasp the glass precariously by pinching the base...
The right way to hold a wine glass? Whichever way that allows for a firm grip and keeps you from SPILLING THE WINE. It'd be a shame to:
1. Spill and ruin your clothes (or someone else's with a serious splash accident)
2. Spill and disrupt a good meal at a restaurant. Yep, all over the table or tablecloth, forcing the staff into emergency clean-up duty.
3. Spill and waste an expensive bottle.
it's a cultural problem, ultimately: one of the consequences of marketing wine to mainstream America is that the aspects of wine culture that can seem pretentious, snobbish, will get neglected--even if those aspects are actually rooted in common sense. so, yeah, you should hold it by the stem; but forgive me if I fail to summon up the appropriate moral outrage.
stemless glasses can be put in the dishwasher; I break them half as often as I break regular glasses; and if I'm using one, I know nobody will scold me for holding it the wrong way.