Shape and Pleasure
The Sommeliers Series
The finest glasses for both technical and hedonistic purposes are those made by Riedel. The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference they make.
(Robert M. Parker, Jr. The Wine Advocate)
Professor Claus J. Riedel was the first designer to recognize that the bouquet, taste, balance and finish of wines are affected by the shape of the glass from which they are drunk.
Forty years ago he began his pioneering work to create stemware that would match and complement different wines and spirits. In the late 1950s, Riedel started to produce glasses which at that time were a design revolution. Thin-blown, unadorned, reducing the design to its essence: Bowl, stem, base.
Working with experienced tasters, Riedel discovered that wine enjoyed from his glasses showed more depth and better balance than when served in other glasses. Claus J. Riedel laid the groundwork for stemware which was functional as well as beautiful, and made according to the Bauhaus design principle: form follows function.
In 1961 a revolutionary concept was introduced, when the Riedel catalogue featured the first line of wine glasses created in different sizes and shapes. Before this, conventional stemware had used a single basic bowl shape, with only the size varying depending on use.
The concept was illustrated to perfection with the introduction of the Sommeliers series in 1973, which achieved worldwide recognition. A glass was born that turns a sip into a celebration - a wine&'s best friend - fine-tuned to match the grape! We invite you to share this fascinating and unique experience.
You don't need to be a wine writer, a wine maker or an expert to taste the difference that a Riedel glass can make.
The Content Determines the Shape
When developing a glass, Riedel's design ideas are not born on a drawing board, but shaped by trial and error with the help and support of the world's greatest palates.
A person interested in wine is led by color, bouquet and taste, but often the glass is not considered as an instrument to convey the message of the wine. Over the years Riedel acquired some interesting scientific explanations as to why the shape of a glass influences the bouquet and taste of alcoholic beverages. The first discovery was made while enjoying wine. The same wine displayed completely differently characteristics when served in a variety of glasses. The differences were so great that experienced connoisseurs were made to believe that they were tasting a different wine.
The grape variety is the key factor in determining the relationship between fruit, acidity, tannin and alcohol. As the next step, Riedel was able to create shapes in which the wine, vinified from specific grape varieties, seemed to improve. We started to recognize the complex role that size and shape play in conveying the message of a fine wine.
Sommeliers 400/00
Ideal for highly tannic red wines of moderate acidity. Directs the wine to the center of the tongue, creating an harmony of fruit, tannin and acidity.
Cut Rim
Permits the wine to flow smoothly onto the tongue.
Sommeliers 400/16
Perfect for red wines with high acidity and moderate tannin. Directs the wine to the tip of the tongue, highlighting the fruit and balancing the naturally high acidity.
Cut Rim
Permits the wine to flow smoothly onto the tongue.
Rolled Rim
Inhibits the smooth flow of wine and tends to accentuate acidity and harshness.
Sommeliers 400/28
For champagne. Designed to highlight the fine bouquet, richness and complexity on the palate.
Sommeliers 400/0
Created for full bodied white wines with moderate acidity. Directs the wine to the center of the tongue, bringing all of the components into perfect harmony.
Sommeliers 400/1
Designed for light fruity white wines that are high in acidity. Guides the wine to the tip of the tongue, accentuating the fruit and deemphasizing the naturally high acid.
Bouquet
The quality and intensity of aromas are determined by the personality of a wine but also by its affinity to the glass shape. Bouquet can only develop in a limited temperature range. Low temperatures temper the intensity, whereas high temperatures promote mainly alcoholic fumes.
Important as the shape of a glass is, it cannot function properly unless the wine is served at the correct temperature and in the right serving quantities (white wine: 2-3 oz., red wine 3-5 oz.). When the wine is poured, it immediately starts to evaporate and its aromas quickly fill the glass in layers according to their density and specific gravity. Consequently, the size and the shape of the glass can be fine-tuned to the typical aromas of a grape variety.
The lightest, most fragile are those reminiscent of flower and fruit and these rise right up to the rim of the glass, while the middle fills with green vegetal scents and earthy, mineral components. The heaviest aromas, typically of wood and alcohol, remain at the bottom of the glass. Swirling the wine in the glass moistens a larger surface area, and this increases the evaporation and intensity of the aromas. But swirling does not encourage different elements of the bouquet to blend together. This in fact explains why the same wine in different glasses shows such an amazing variety of aromas.(The same wine can exhibit fruit aromas in one glass and green and vegetal notes in another). To eliminate this effect, you would have to move the layers vertically and shake the glass. Only then would you discover the same bouquet in all glasses!
Experienced tasters rely on their olfactory talents more than their palates to determine the provenance of the wine or the grape variety in blind tastings. Very large glasses with a capacity of more than 25 ounces allow you to "nose" through the layers of bouquet by inhaling very gently and regularly for about ten seconds, penetrating down through the surface layers of fruit to the more earthy and alcoholic notes below.
Taste
Each individual is the sovereign of his palate. We cannot dictate rigid rules that override personal preferences. We can, however, give some valuable guidelines - and over the years the response of wine lovers to our suggestions has been overwhelmingly positive. Physical movements and adjustments of head and body are controlled subconsciously. The shape of the glass forces the head to position itself in such a way that you drink and do not spill. Wide, open glass shapes require us to sip by lowering the head, whereas a narrow rim forces the head to tilt backwards so that the liquid flows because of its gravity. This delivers and positions the beverage to different "taste zones" of the palate.
Gulping to quench one's thirst negates the benefits of the glass, since it means that flavour is only experienced in the aftertastes. Alcoholic beverages are consumed according to their strength in small to very small quantities at a time. this offers the opportunity to control the flow of the drink and consequently the initial contact with the tongue. The resulting nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain at a speed of 400/m sec, where it leaves a lasting first impression. In most cases we are disappointed if sweet fruit flavours are absent ant tart components dominate the taste picture. When this happens, the tendency is to blame the wine rather than the inappropriate shape of the glass.
This is precisely where a glass can make a dramatic difference in conveying a wine's message. Every wine has its own unique blend of qualities: fruit, acidity, minerals, tannin, alcohol that are based on the grape variety and the climate and soil on which it is grown. By studying the varietal characteristics, Riedel glasses are able to deliver a wine or spirit to the nose and palate in such a way that it can fully express its personality. The finish plays an important part in the overall impression and this too is strongly influenced by the design of the bowl. It will take time to recognize that a glass is not just a glass, but an instrument of pleasure and enjoyment.
General Rules
The glasses are designed to emphasize a wine's harmony, not faults. Riedel has always viewed the wine glass as an instrument to bring together: the personality of the wine, smell, taste, appearance (including the beauty of the object).
To fully appreciate the different grape varieties and the subtle characteristics of individual wines, it is essential to have a glass which has a shape fine-tuned for the purpose. The shape is responsible for the quality and intensity of the bouquet and the flow of the wine.
The initial contact point depends on the shape and volume of the glass, the diameter of the rim, and its finish (whether it is a cut and polished or rolled edge) as well as the thickness of the crystal.
As you put your wine glass to your lips, your taste buds are on the alert. The wine flow is directed onto the appropriate taste zones of your palate and consequently leads to different taste pictures. Once your tongue is in contact with the wine three messages are transmitted at the same time: temperature, texture and taste.
Shape
Riedel's guiding principle: The content determines the shape.
Size
The size of a glass is important, affecting the quality and intensity of aromas. The breathing space has to be chosen according to the "personality" of the wine or spirit.
Red wines require large glasses, white wines medium-sized glasses and spirits, small ones (to emphasize the fruit character and not the alcohol).
Serving Quantities
The glass should not be over-filled.
Red wine: four to five ounces;
White wine: three ounces;
Spirits: one ounce.
Serving Quantities
The glass should not be over-filled.
Red wine: four to five ounces;
White wine: three ounces;
Spirits: one ounce.
Scientific Background and Taste Illusion
Taste Sensation Localized by Touch by Linda M. Bartoshuk, Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Surgery.
We get calories from three categories of macronutrients: carbohydrates (which include sugar and starch), proteins and fats. To consider how these might be detected, we must distinguish between taste and smell.
When food or beverages enter the mouth, they contact gustatory receptors on the tongue and palate. The sensations produced are sweet, salty, sour, or bitter. At the same time, volatiles from the foods and beverages rise through the oral and nasal cavities and ultimately reach the olfactory receptors located just under the eyes.
The many qualitatively distinct olfactory sensations that can be produced are responsible for much of the sensory experience of eating. That is, while we eat, we both taste and smell foods. We call the composite sensation ÒflavourÓ, and we perceptually localize it in the mouth.
We believe that this localization is produced by the sense of touch. Taste sensations are not localized to the location of taste buds, but rather to areas touched in the mouth. Thus during drinking and eating, taste sensations seem to originate from the entire inner surface of the mouth even though the taste buds are found only on certain loci. this occurs because the brain uses the sense of touch to localize taste sensations.
Taste-Olfactory Confusion
Although we generally speak of tasting foods and beverages, much of the sensory input involved is actually olfactory.
Modalities That Sense Food
The combination of taste and olfaction is called flavor. Clinical taste pathologies have begun to yield insights about how the taste system works, and the development of a remarkable way to count taste buds in living human subjects has let us begin to connect anatomical variation with functional differences.
Taste Anatomy
The tongue is covered with a variety of papillae that give it its bumpy appearance. Filiform papillae are the most numerous but they contain no taste buds.
The fungiform papillae are distributed most densely at the tip (the front of the tongue contributes a disproportionate amount to whole taste-nerve responses) and on the edges of the tongue.
The foliate papillae consist of a series of folds on the rear edges of the tongue. Foliate papillae can be seen at the base of the tongue. The circumvallate papillae are large circular structures on the rear of the tongue.
Genetic Variations
In 1931, Fox reported a startling, accidental discovery. He was synthesizing some phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) in his laboratory and some of it blew into the air.
One of his colleagues commented on how bitter it was, yet Fox tasted nothing. Fox's discovery stimulated geneticists to evaluate families for the distribution of "taste blindness" and the results of these and later studies led to the conclusion that tasting is produced by the dominant allele, T.(An allele is any of the group of genes from which a pair of genes occupying identical places and homologous chromosomes can be drawn.) Individuals with two recessive alleles, tt, are nontasters (the nontaster functions are lower at the lowest concentrations) and individuals with one dominant allele, Tt, as well as those with two dominant alleles, TT, are tasters. There is evidence for three phenotypic groups in the threshold data. Nontasters were a very homogeneous group but tasters showed a great deal of variability.
What Makes Supertasters Different from Medium and Nontasters?
Miller and Reedy have introduced a new perspective. They utilized methylene blue to stain the taste buds so that they could be counted. They found that tasters had more taste buds than nontasters. In addition, they found that subjects with more taste buds perceived stronger tastes.
Since there are pain fibres associated with taste buds, supertasters are unusually responsive to the oral burn of spices. A recent extension of this work showed that supertasters have the largest number of taste buds, nontasters the smallest.
The difference in number of receptors are very large. For example, the average number of taste buds per square centimetre was 96, 184 and 425 for nontasters, mediumtasters and supertasters, respectively.
The supertasters fungiform papillae were smaller and had rings of tissue arid them that were not seen on the fungiform papillae of nontasters. These anatomical differences my prove to be a better indicator of genetic status than the taste differences.
Supertasters and Ethyl Alcohol
The alcohol effect is especially interesting because of the finding that alcoholism is associated with non-tasting. This suggests that super and mediumtasters might be protected against alcoholism to some extent, because the alcohol is a less pleasant sensory stimulus to those individuals.
Age
The good news is that taste is very robust across age.
The bad news is that olfactory sensations do diminish with age.
The Tongue Map
One of the most widespread "facts" about taste concerns the distribution of sensitivity to the four basic tastes. This "fact", was re-examined by Collings (1974.)
The tongue map with "sweet" on the tip, "bitter" on the back and so on dates back to the PhD thesis of Hänig which was published in Philosophische Studien in 1901. He believed that if the thresholds for his four stimuli (sweet, acid, salty and bitter) could be shown to vary differentially around the perimeter of the tongue, then this would support the argument that these four tastes had distinct physiological mechanisms. Hänig noted that the sensitivity for sweet was at its maximum on the tongue tip an its minimum on the base of the tongue.
For bitter, the sensitivity was at its maximum on the base of the tongue and its minimum on the tip. Saltiness was perceived approximately equally on all loci. For sourness, the sensitivity was at its minimum on the tip and the base with two equidistant maxima at the centers of the tongue edges.
Edwin Boring, the great historian of psychology at Harvard, discussed Hänig's thesis in Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology published in 1942. Boring did not reproduce Hänig's thesis in Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology published in 1942. Boring did not reproduce Hänig's summary sketch but rather calculated the actual sensitivities by taking the reciprocals of the average thresholds given in Hänig's tables.
On Boring's figure, there is no way to tell how meaningful the sizes of the variations are on the ordinate. Boring's graph led other authors to conclude that there was virtually no sensation at the loci where the curves showed a minimum and that there was maximum sensation where the curves showed a maximum and so we have the familiar tongue maps labelled "sweet" on the tip of the tongue, "bitter&qout; on the base of the tongue, etc.
Collings re-examined the threshold variation in 1974. Her results differed from those os Hänig in some regards (e.g. bitter thresholds are actually lower n the front of the tongue than on the back); however, in one very important particular Collings and Hänig agreed: there were variations in taste threshold around the perimeter of the tongue but those variations were small.
Effects of Temperature on the Perceived Sweetness of Sucrose
The effects of temperature on the sweetness of sucrose have the most practical significance at relatively low concentrations of sucrose.
According to our data, the sweetness of sucrose increases by 40% as the temperature increases from 4°C (about refrigerator temperature) to 36°C (about body temperature).
On the other hand, the sweetness of a lower sucrose concentration like the sucrose equivalent of 2 teaspoons of sugar in a cup of coffee increases by 92% (i.e., the sweetness nearly doubles) as the temperature increases from 4° to 36°C.
Why Do We Love Sweetness?
Sugars are the primary natural stimulus for the sweet taste in nature. Love of sugar is virtually universal among mammals.
We can even examine the human's reactions to sweet taste at an earlier point in development. De Snoo (1937) was intrigued by the fact that the fetus drinks amniotic fluid. He succeeded in getting the fetus to drink more amniotic fluid by injecting saccharin into it. This remarkable feat demonstrated that taste receptors function before birth, a fact that has now been extensively studied in other species.
It also demonstrated that sweetness is liked before birth. Did our sweet systems evolve to ensure that those sugars that are useful to us produce intense sweet tastes, while those that are not are less sweet? The sugar molecule that is most important biologically is glucose. This molecule serves as an important energy source in the body and is the only energy source that can be utilized by the brain.
