Why the glass should be half full

A GLISTENING table of Downton Abbey elegance, laden with glasses and candles. Elegant, beautiful glasses, but do their sizes and shapes serve any purpose? Can expensive glasses add to the pleasure of wine drinking?

I recently attended a masterclass given by Austrian Georg Riedel, on the art of choosing a wine glass, and how to use it. I sniffed and swirled, chewed on white and dark chocolate, and, after, tasted red wines from three different types of glasses.

I also, separately, tasted water and white wine from the three same glasses, which were designed using scientific analysis of the DNA of many of the 1,200 varieties of grape.