Mmmh. Wine. Who doesn’t like wine? Certainly not me. Ever since the first stolen sip you had as a child during the boring Christmas party where all the adults were passed out, everyone’s got their own wine stories to tell.
This delicious beverage is consumed by the population and separated into two broad categories: red and white wine. Everyone at one point tried to take a wine-tasting class or sniff into their wine, desperate to keep their expression lofty and faintly approving in an overpriced restaurant.
While the different types of wines need to be learned in depth over a lifetime, did you know there’s quite a bit of learning required to differentiate dessert wine glasses? That’s right; you see more than one type of wine glass. It’s not a mere change in size but the whole construct, purpose, and history. It’s fascinating the kind of things we humans have come up with. The types of dessert wine glasses can be divided into four or sometimes five categories.
So, for all those wine lovers who love the taste and feel of the wine and the sense of pretentiousness that comes with it, let’s learn the proper glasses needed for our next party.
The Types of Wine Glasses You Have Been Calling Wrong All Along
A wine glass contains four parts that together make up its structure. The wine glass base is used to provide it with stability. This gives way to the stem of the wine glass; depending on the glass, the branch could be longer or shorter.
The major purpose of the stem in a wine glass is to prevent the transfer of body heat into the wine. In the case of normal glass, the person holds the mirror, thereby directly transferring the body heat into the content inside. However, the stem prevents this, helping retain the temperature of the wine at an ideal level.
On top of the stem rests the bowl, which holds the wine. Once again, the bowl’s shape, width, and height aree directly influenced by the type of wine it is meant to be used for. Each wine type has a preferred bowl shape that works best.
And finally, the rim. The rim refers to the circle at the top of the bowl. Thinner edges are associated with quality glasses, as the thickness of the glass doesn’t take away the concentration lent to the wine. However, thick, round boundaries are difficult to use and remove the taste.
There are four types of wine glasses: red wine glass, white wine glass, sparkling wine glass, and dessert wine glass. There exist several subcategories in each of these wine glasses.
Red wine glasses have a larger bowl and a shorter stem. The bowl’s wide span lets the drink aerate, and the wine’s subtle scent is released when brought closer or swirled. The white wine has a much less wide bowl and contains a long step to maintain the temperature of the wine. Sparkling wine has narrow bowls and long stems. This lets the drink stay carbonated and helps it not lose its structure. The elongated stem also prevents the transfer of body heat. Finally, dessert wine is usually preferred to be served in a smaller glass. The reason for using small dessert wine glasses is to monitor the quantity consumed and trap in the wine’s flavor and smell.
Dessert Wine Glassware
It should be no surprise that the pretty crystal dessert wine glasses have their history and reasons. Dessert wines also have high alcohol content. Hence, the small dessert wine glasses.
Dessert wines, or pudding wines mostly in the UK, are sweet wines frequently offered with dessert.
Dessert wines are hard to categorize. Dessert wine is any sweet wine served with a meal in the United Kingdom, notably as opposed to white fortified wines (fino and amontillado sherry) served before the meal and red fortified wines (Port and Madeira) served afterward.
The Port Dessert Wine Glasses
Port wine glasses are usually used to categorize wine into Port or other dessert wines.
These wine glasses contain a narrow mouth. The circumference of the rim is designed to reduce evaporation. This is used to help concentrate the delicious aromas that your dessert wine has.
The glasses are typically tall, which allows for swirling the wine and helps release the scent. Port dessert wine glasses are also designed to feed the wine down the center of your mouth in a slow, sensual way, leading it back to allow for the perfect proportion of sweetness to hit your tastebuds. Quite ingenious, truly.
Sherry Wine Glass
Sherry wine glasses are usually used for the type of wine categorized as sherry, cordial, and other dessert wines.
This small wine glass is highly suitable for dessert wines, as they have the aforementioned high levels of alcohol. Sherry wine glasses are designed to facilitate the movement of wine directly to the back of one’s mouth. This is preferred as dessert wines might also seem overwhelmingly sweet, and this way, they are controlled.
Several leading dessert wine glassware companies manufacture crystal dessert wine glasses. Our suggestions are to get your dessert wine glasses from Riedel or Waterford. We also recommend the Schott Zwiesel dessert wine glass if you want something fancy.
Happy wining and dining!
