{"title":"Riedel Wine Glasses \u0026 Glassware","description":"\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eEleven generations\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe Riedels have been making glass since 1756, when the family founded a glassworks in Bohemia. They were dispossessed of the Bohemian factories after the Second World War and began again in Austria, buying a glassworks at Kufstein in 1956. Georg Riedel, the tenth generation, and his son Maximilian, the eleventh, run the company today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe generation that changed the glass\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eClaus Riedel, the ninth generation, was the first to design a glass around what was going into it rather than around how it could be decorated. He reduced the form to bowl, stem and base and took out the cutting, engraving and colour that had defined fine stemware until then. His 1958 Exquisit stemware is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Burgundy Grand Cru shape sits in the V\u0026amp;A.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eIn 1973 he launched Sommeliers, the first collection of glasses shaped for particular wines rather than for the table as a whole. Every shape in it is still mouth-blown. The idea has since been taken up by every serious glassmaker, which is a fair measure of how well it held up.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eHow they are made\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eMouth-blown at Kufstein\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eNine furnaces run at around 1,300°C. Each glass is made by a team working to a Meister: one glassmaker gathers molten glass on the pipe, the Meister blows and turns it into the mould, and the stem and base are then added from separate gathers and worked with tongs and wooden blocks before the rim is cut from the pipe and the glass is cooled. There is a window of about fifteen seconds at each stage and roughly a millimetre of tolerance. Qualifying as a Meister takes at least five years. The workshop makes between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces a day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eMachine-made at Weiden\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe machine-made glasses come from the Riedel factory at Weiden in Germany, drawn from the same designs and held to tolerances no hand workshop can repeat all day. Machine production is what brought varietal-specific shapes within reach of ordinary drinking; before it, they were a sommelier's tool.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eWhat the shape does\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe bowl\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eWine fills to the widest part of the bowl, where it meets the most air. Above that sits the headspace, and that is where aromatic compounds gather. Narrow the opening above a wide bowl and you concentrate them; open the rim out and you let them disperse. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why a Burgundy glass is a balloon and a Riesling glass is not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe rim\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eA thin, cut rim puts nothing between the wine and the drinker. A thick rolled rim does, and you feel it. The rim also sets how far you tilt your head and how quickly the wine arrives across the palate, which changes the order in which you notice things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eA study at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in 2015 imaged ethanol vapour above different glasses and found that a stemmed wine glass gathers it into a ring at the rim, leaving the centre of the opening clearer. You get the aroma of the wine rather than the burn of the alcohol carrying it. A tumbler does not do this.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eHow much to pour\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eFill to the widest point of the bowl and stop. In a large glass that is far less than it looks — often a third of the way up. Overfill it and you lose the headspace the shape exists to create.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eWhat the evidence actually supports\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe effect is real and it is modest. Sensory studies find measurable differences between glass shapes, but subtle ones, and researchers disagree about how much of it is the glass and how much the drinker. The older claim that a rim delivers wine to a particular part of the tongue does not hold; the tongue map was discredited long ago. What survives is simpler and sound: shape governs how much air the wine meets, how its aroma concentrates, and how it arrives. That is enough to be worth getting right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThe glass itself\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThin walls, no colour, no distortion. The glass is lead-free crystal, which is clearer and stronger than its weight suggests, and the rim is cut rather than rolled. Weight sits in the base, not in the bowl. None of this is decoration. A heavy, tinted or optically imperfect glass gets between you and the wine before you have tasted anything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eLooking after them\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eMost of the range is dishwasher safe, on a low temperature, spaced so nothing touches. Rinse in hot water and dry with a linen cloth if you would rather wash by hand; detergent leaves a film that flattens sparkling wine and dulls aroma. Store upright rather than on the rim, which is the thinnest part of the glass, and keep them out of the cupboard that holds anything strongly scented.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eDelivery\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eGlassware is packed separately and by hand, and travels in its own purpose made box. Orders placed before 2pm are dispatched the same working day for next-day delivery or select your preffered delivery date at checkout\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"riedel-veritas-cabernet-merlot-mosel-decanter","title":"RIEDEL Veritas Cabernet \/ Merlot  4 Glass \u0026  Decanter Set","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eFour glasses shaped for Cabernet and Merlot, and a decanter that takes a full bottle with room to move. Riedel introduced Veritas in 2014: the bowls follow the hand-blown Sommeliers shapes, blown thin by machine so they can be made to the same measurements every time. They are light, and lighter than they look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGlasses\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe bowl is tall and comparatively narrow, drawing in to a cut rim. Cabernet and Merlot carry firm tannin and a lot of aroma; the shape holds that aroma over the wine and delivers it in a narrow stream rather than all at once.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eAt 625ml, the bowl is larger than most people expect. Fill it to the widest point — around a third — and no further. That is the pour the shape is built for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDecanter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe Mosel is 1,320ml, so a 750ml bottle sits well below the shoulder with air above it and room to swirl. Young Bordeaux and Bordeaux blends benefit from an hour in it; older bottles want less, and want decanting mainly to leave the sediment behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWine \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Bordeaux blends, across the Médoc, Pauillac, Margaux, St Julien, St Estèphe, Pessac-Léognan, Pomerol and St Émilion. Also Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Carménère, Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSpecifications:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGlasses: \u003c\/strong\u003e235mm tall, 95mm at the widest point. Bowl holds 625ml filled to the brim; Riedel's serving measure is 125ml. Crystal glass, premium machine-made.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDecanter:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e285mm tall, 108mm across. Takes a standard 750ml bottle. Crystal glass, machine-made.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RIEDEL","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223821955457,"sku":"5449\/0-MOS","price":125.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0021\/0862\/0858\/files\/RIEDELVeritasCabernet_Merlot_MoselDecanter.jpg?v=1788534946"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.fineandwild.com\/collections\/riedel-wine-glasses-glassware.oembed","provider":"FINE \u0026 WILD","version":"1.0","type":"link"}