Weekend wine with Blake Creedon
So why then are so many avid wine fans oblivious to how much better wine can taste from the right glasses?
The classic wine glass — generous in size, and shaped like an unopened tulip — didn’t evolve by accident: it’s been designed around the unique makeup of wine to show it at its best. The generous bowl allows your wine to ‘breathe’ and to contain and concentrate those aromas, it tapers inward towards a lip as slender and elegant as that of a china teacup.
If that doesn’t describe what’s in your kitchen press, then it’s time to upgrade to high-definition wine glasses.
The good news is that price has very little to do with it. TK Maxx stocks three types of glass from Riedel’s ‘Flow’ range at €14.99 for a pair. The three are supposed to be the optimum shapes for cabernet, pinot noir and shiraz respectively. I prefer one of Marks & Spencer’s brands of wine glasses. Their ‘Windsor’ range costs only €20 for four (with variants for red and white wine) and their Champagne flutes are slightly cheaper. Not all M&S stores keep them in stock, but you can order them.
They’re cheaper than many of the designer-ey glasses on the market, The shops are stuffed with ‘designer’ glasses which are far dearer than the ones I’m recommending today — but many of the more expensive ones break all the basic rules of size and shape for proper wine glasses. Many glasses also disguise your wine behind patterned or coloured glass.
Even a modestly-priced wine can be one of the most beautiful items on your dinner table when it’s displayed in a decent clear glass, so please stick to plain, clear glass.
To see pictures and more details about these wine glasses, take a look at my blog at www.blakecreedon.wordpress.com.
-WHILE we’re at it, let’s move on to another wine puzzle. You’d swear the choice for white wine is between sauvignon blanc and chardonnay. Which is like limiting your colour palette to only green or red. Let’s go take a look at some alternative white wine styles.
Like the gewurz below, this style of wine is not for everyone. But I’d recommend checking it out. The moscatel grape family is particularly apt for making sweet wines. And although not quite a fully-fledged dessert wine, this is unctuously sweet. Crucially, though, it’s not merely sweet, but is dripping with delicious ripe peach and honey with an undertow of lemon.
The grape’s name is a bit of a mouthful (Ge-VAYTZ-tra-minor is my best attempt to pronounce it) but happily so too is the wine itself. Hailing from Alsace, the Germanic bit of France, it’s an acquired taste given its intensely sweet aroma even when dry. Smelling of roses, it can be a cracking accompaniment for highly spiced food. M&S has an excellent Vin D’Alsace Gewürztraminer at around €11 while more widely available are two good examples from Chile — Cono Sur and Torres Santa Digna.
You simply have to add ugni blanc/colombard blends from the south west of France to your wine repertoire: fresh light inflected with delicate grapefruit flavours. Other examples include Domaine Duffour Blanc 2009 (O’Brien’s) or Rare Vineyards Ugni Blanc Vieilles Vignes (Superquinn) both for about a tenner.
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