Breaking news about glasses

Jancis has come out with her own wine glass!

Oh happy day.

Just like Rachel Ray!

Interestingly, it’s for both reds and whites and it’s not variety-specific. Take that Riedel!

BUT

she has separate decanters for young and old wine.

Tasting “science” sure is interesting. I hate the one decanter she has but the glass looks OK. I have a couple of the Suckling glasses and generally add a few points to any wine I try when I’m using those. Maybe with these, I’ll subtract a few.

love it, well done!

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The Suckling glass remains much more shapely:
Suckling glass.jpg

$56 is rough for a single

Look similar to the Zalto Universal

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This has me mystified:
“…bottle-shaped Old Wine Decanter, which has been crafted to allow users to decant off the sediment while limiting the wine’s surface area, minimising the risk of oxidation.”

So, instead of decanting your wine into another container (decanter?), one pours the entire bottle into this “decanter” and then pours individual glasses while leaving behind the sediment?

It might work for wines with quick-settling sediment, but what is the point? I suppose it brings the benefit of shoulders to wines in slope-sided bottles, but why not just decant them…into the decanter?

Amazing, I can only imagine the research she did to come up with a single type of glass that makes both red and whites better! I see that it costs alot per glass, so clearly there must have been a ton of R&D. Back up the trailer!!

I think the intent of the Old Wine Decanter is to decant off of the sediment from the bottle into the decanter, where the wine may remain without much further exposure to air while waiting to be served. I’m sure if we weren’t already exhausted from discussing it already, we could generate a dozen pages of commentary on the logic, physics, metaphysics, psychology and faith associated with that concept.

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In some ways I kinda agree with both the single glass concept and the two decanters.

But… I really wish some of the more high profile wine people would take on the ISO glass. It is terrible. And it is used in way too many official settings (e.g. WSET, etc). It is a personal pet peeve of mine.

+1

Totally kills all aromas and flavors.

I would have preferred breaking glasses about news…

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I would imagine the idea is that you decant once carefully in advance so you don’t have to fret about sediment when you’re pouring each glass, which is an issue with undecanted older wines.

(and John Morris too)

OK, I get it, it really is a decanter, just one with a narrow shape…

+1

I have done all too many wine courses etc. studies that rely solely on the ISO glass and even one is more than enough.

I understand the idea behind the glass, but I really don’t think the best idea to approach wine as neutrally as possible is to make all the wines equally dull and lousy.

I would have thought most of us already do the “two decanter” thing. I at least decant young wine into a very broad flat bottomed decanter where it will get a lot of air. I decant old wines into a more bulbous decanter, with far less surface area, which I might have bought from Pier One or some place for <$10. I would be quite surprised if the idea of the Jancis older wine decanter was to pour the wine PLUS the sediment into it from the bottle, as it seemed was being suggested above.

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All we need now is to define Old and Young. [stirthepothal.gif]

champagne.gif

For people this is easy: “old” is 10 years older than me. For wines, not so much.

Seriously, is it just me or is this the first time focusing on decanter shape / size in similar fashion to what has happened to glasses.

It may be, but it’s certainly something I think about. I would never put a mature wine in a decanter with a really broad bottom.

Or in such a person.

But I do believe Richard is on to something.

Not only young and old, but why not keep going. Surely a middle-aged wine from Piedmont can’t require the same decanting as a young wine from Sonoma. The sediment is supposed to be quite different. And then there’s Port and that sediment is a thing apart.

Truth be told, like Tim, the single glass idea doesn’t bother me but the idea that she has anything new to offer seems a bit crass and un-Jancis like.

At least Suckling made no bones about it - he has a product and he’s hustling it. No real claim that it’s going to make any particular wine better or worse, just that it’s a nice glass. His is approximately the size of the Riedel Riesling glass, maybe a bit wider at the base. And that may be a decent approach - I remember reading somewhere that about half of the winemakers surveyed used that Riesling glass as their regular sampling glass.

No idea how valid that claim is but it wasn’t made by Riedel, as it would be counterproductive for them.

I’d be interested in finding one of these new glasses just for kicks.