Breathable stemware

Salut/Hi Leo Bueno,

As a further follow up, I did what you could have done. I look at Eisch's web site.

le/on Fri, 28 Jan 2005 05:01:22 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

There is no mention of this on their web site.

All they talk about is a new shape of decanter/funnel.

I've not checked up on Mr Wiegand's qualifications. He does exist, and had a bad head-on collision in his car in 2000 it seems.

Here is the claim:

"Eisch has created breathable crystal that aerates your wine in just minutes. This novel development is hard to believe, but really works. The crystal has undergone a proprietary treatment that allows wine to aerate in just two to four minutes. More importantly, the glasses will never lose their ability to improve your best wines and can be washed just like other glasses -- no special treatment required. Hand-blown of lead-free crystal, these glasses are extremely durable. Taste for yourself, the proof is in the glass."

"Ronn R. Wiegand, Master of Wine & Master Sommelier and Publisher of Restaurant Wine on breathable glasses: "I was skeptical about the claim of 'breathable glasses' but was convinved of their unique qualities after serious taste-testing in my office with dozens of different wine types. I found that the glasses made the wines tasted from them -- after 2 or 3 minutes -- smoother and more integrated than the same wines served in comparable glasses from other suppliers.""

Is it true?

-- ================================================Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida? Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at

Nope.

M.

Hi Quote: "Ronn R. Wiegand, Master of Wine & Master Sommelier and Publisher of Restaurant Wine on breathable glasses:"

Who is that? Did he say that? Anders

Wouldn't it leak?

David E

I doubt it. It sounds like magnets to me.

Dana

I think you have uncovered the secret, Magnetic Glass!

Leo Bueno wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

One of my favorite sayings is "It sounds like bullshit to me." I think this qualifies.

Fred.

Leo,

I have no experience with this product, so I cannot refute the claims, however, I think they would make great accessories should one wish to make obscene telephone calls. Imagine placing some of these "breathing" glasses next to the mouthpiece of the telephone... :-)

I feel that these are rather like the "magnets," as others have stated, and will just continue to decant, and swirl, when I think my wine needs aeration.

Hunt

Eisch hasn't posted the breathable stemware to their site, yet, because they're just now in mass production. This stemware was exclusively used at the Greystone CIA facility in Napa for Robert Parker's 25th Anniversary. RP will be commenting on breathable stemware shortly. Who Ronn Wiegand is... the first person in the US to hold both MS and MW certificates. He also received special recognition for achieving both with ultra high scores. He's got one of the best, most classily trained palates in the world, is a world-wide traveler (about to go to Greece in a week), and widely sought-out by wine professionals (both for tasting of their wines for evaluation, and for conducting seminars). Breathable glass is a proprietary process, and inventor Alan Zalayet is not going to patent the process, just produce the stemware. Paul Manchester and I have been working with winemakers to create a Petite Sirah glass in this line. (I started a group with Louis M. Foppiano called PS I Love You. It's a group of PS growers and producers). Winemakers involved in this PS glass development process are the following: Foppiano's Bill Regan, Concannon's Adam Richardson, Rosenblum's Jeff Cohn (JC Cellars is his own label, too), Paul Dolan (Fetzer fame who now owns Parducci, among other labels), Parducci's Bob Swain, Trentadue's Miro Tcholakov, Pacific Star's Sally Ottoson, Field Stone's Tom Mulligan, Robert Biale's Al Perry, Silkwood's John Monnich (Proprietor), Mettler's Larry Mettler, and Lolonis's Ed West (I think I got them all)... After working through two phases of development for a perfect Petite Sirah glass, and as you all know, this is the varietal that will surely benefit from immediate decanting, all of these winemakers agree, breathable glasses work. I sat on the panel, too, so I'm included in this belief. You'll be hearing more about this as the year goes on, and some of you will give them a try (for your own edification. We all went into the tasting as skeptics. Not one of us is skeptical now. We were able to pour each winemaker's PS in a breathable and non-breathable glass of the exact same design. The breathable glasses showed really well. They did indeed cause the tannins to rapidly soften, and bring the black fruit forward much quicker than the non-breathable prototypes. And, no, the glasses aren't porous. Nothing leaks out of the glass ;^) (Three) Cheers for Eisch! -- jo

The mere fact that the manufacturer is trying to create a glass shape for a particular variety makes me even more skeptical about this breathable glass business. I can only see the ad copy: "glass shape created by winemakers". Still sounds like hocus-pocus to me.

If "breathing" means exposure to and a reaction with oxygen, then the process has to be either physical or chemical. The stuff is not porous and I suspect there are no tiny nano-propellers swirling inside the glass, or miniature heaters either, so the other way I can conceive of having the wine increase its breathing is chemically.

One possible way that comes to mind is for the glass to have a controlled release of an oxidant, but this sounds far-fetched, plus, it amounts to adulterating the wine.

Alternatively, perhaps, the manufacture is immobilizing an enzyme on the glass surface which speeds up the breathing process, but I suspect the FDA would have a say in this matter, given human consumption is involved; also, one good run through a dish washer would probably wipe it out.

So, count me in as part of the skeptics.

-- ================================================Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida? Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at

All sounds very impressive. I'm sure the inventor must have done extensive mass spectrometer tests showing the permeability of this wonder-glass to various gasses.

Anything you'd care to share?

Because one cannot patent a marketing gimmick perhaps?

-- ================================================Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida? Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at

My first statement on this was that maybe the porous glass was made of magnets so I was also a doubter.

Do you think maybe our criticism of the breathable glass is caused by our very narrow focus on porous glass rather than a shape that will perhaps cause the the wine to move around in the glass. I think we should be open minded until we find out what the technology is. So far the criticism in the group has not been any better founded than the porous glass. Bill

Guess you don't know that Riedle's Hermitage glass ($75 buck a pop) also had a glass shaping panel, with Al Perry of Robert Biale and Jeff Cohn of Rosenblum sitting on those panels, among others. I didn't know anything about this either, as there's lots that goes on in this business that's private and proprietary. Then, I started to investigae why I had to taste a Petite Sirah in a Syrah glass during Foppiano's Annual Petite Sirah Noble Symposium (and I know that you don't know about this event, either, as it's only open to growers and producers). I'm currently organizing year number 4.

The greatest gift the glass industry can give consumers is a group of experts putting their collective palates together to help a glass designer do it right... Also, do you not know that all glass companies have glasses styled for particular varietals? Bordeaux glasses, Burgundy glasses, Sauvignon Blanc glasses, etc.?

I have a press release that I just sent to a media person who's reading this stream. His curiosity is totally piqued. I find the wirters that I have relationships with are totally awed by the info that I have... that's good enough for me. May your glass always be half full, as Robert Parker says on his recorded phone message. I like his style!

The inventor hasn't shared his process. If he patents his process, his trade secrets will become everyone's baby. Not going to happen any time soon. Alan sits in the Bavarian Forest and dreams up so many innovations, that he was the only one to take me seriously, when I said that I wanted to drink my Petite from a Petite glass... The French don't recognize Petite as a Rhone varietal; therefore, why should we drink this American varietal in a glass designed for the father grape of Petite Sirah... Syrah (mother is Peloursin).

Interestingly, there are only three people in the world that know Alan Zalayet's process: Alan himself, and two people in Germany who are glass blowers with his company. Actually, I don't care what he's done to make these glasses so awesome... And, beyond wondering how, the winemakers on the panel didn't press it, either. The bottom line for all of us was, we tasted some of the best Petite Sirahs out there collectively, including what was brought out from their cellars as library wines (86 Foppiano, 83 Parducci, 92 Concannon), and they rocked! They also didn't completely fall apart, which was an immediate concern by all of us.

I've got to go back and find out (I think it's Al Perry with Robert Biale), but before we knew it, they called themselves "Winemakers in Space!" Some of the Petite's were reaching toward 16 percent alcohol. The Phase I glasses had globes with the bowl's opening being very large, so the alcohol was delivered first. Sniffing through all of their wines, we began to realize why the first set wouldn't work. Phase II glasses were delivered with a much tighter rim, and hands-down, of the two glasses (along with the first set of three), the glass designed to be the Petite glass was nearly everyone's favorite -- We voted democratically, and we now have a glass that not only softens tannins, but it also delivers exceptional fruit.

There couldn't be a chemical involved, or the super-sensitive palates of these guys would have immediately have picked this up... Plus, let's see... do I trust someone like Ronn Wiegand with his MS & MW over anyone else? Yup... The old adage, you can please some of the people some of the time, you can't please them all, all of the time.

Those who love Petite, those who love stepping outside the bounds, and those who are totally curious... this glass is for them!

Interesting... Shape of the glass is very important. It was what the entire tasting with the glasses was about. The first three glasses that we had were all too tall, too heavy, the rim was too wide... and yet, as we tasted each wine (one at a time, but in each of the three glasses in front of us), each glass delivered a completely different nose, and delivered completely differently on the palate. It was really interesting. The next set (only two prototypes) was shorter, lighter, tighter rim.

What's fascinating is: to taste in breathable and non-breathable side by side is what convinced the winemakers that they liked the breathable better. They weren't all tied up in skepticism or "how"... They all just wanted to take their glasses back to their labs so they could taste some more, on their own, in their own time.

Winemakers don't get many samples of this sort. They're the forgotten one in this process. I was told that I could be the one to choose the glass. This didn't appeal to me. Four units in vit, enology, wine components, etc... 60 total units in this business doesn't make me winemakers. UCD and Fresno State does that... I knew enough to bring in the experts, and I was the fly on the wall that got to watch it all, and be their story teller... which I've already started professionally with my core writer group... and beyond. I uncover more and more people all the time. Fortunately, writers have moved way past "skeptic"... ;^) They get samples all the time... the best way to knock out the wonderment!

nope... because it can be ripped off...

Many people in this group are well aware of the Riedel design process, including several who have attended one of the Riedel demonstration seminars and others who've met Georg Riedel himself. The issue of glass shape affecting the character of the wine is not what is at issue here.

Of course we do.

The issue is how one would make "breathable" glasses. As others have mentioned, the process of a wine "breathing" involves oxidation of various flavor components of the wine, resulting from exposure of the wine to molecular oxygen in the wine itself. The reason that you're hearing so much skepticism is that the solubility of oxygen in wine is the limiting factor (oxygen being quite reactive), and no amount of tinkering with the glass is going to change the solubility constant of oxygen in wine.

There is one possible role for the glass in promoting oxidation: there could be trace inorganic salts in the glass that catalyze the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide (frequently produced by the reaction of oxygen with a reducing agent) to hydroxy radical, another very potent oxidant. We know that boron and lead can be easily introduced into glass, so it would come as no surprise to me if molybdenum, rhenium or chromium could be incorporated too (and all of those metals have been observed to catalyze peroxide decomposition under certain circumstances). However, I would want to see some description of the methodology and some empirical data before buying that idea.

Your statement that Alan won't patent it because he doesn't want to reveal the idea runs contrary to the whole basis of patent law: you apply for a patent to protect your idea for 17 years; lack of a patent means that anyone else can poach your idea and claim it as their own. In my experience, people who claim technological innovations but decline to patent them are usually frauds and hucksters, though I am making no assertions about the people who've developed this glass.

Lastly, I am not persuaded by your experiences, or those of the rest of the tasting panel. Unless the tasting was conducted in at least a single blind, and preferably a double blind, environment, it's impossible to rule out the power of suggestion and the effect of psychology on the outcome. This is not in any sense an indictment of the tasters, merely a criticism of the experiment itself. The placebo effect is real, and it's surprisingly powerful.

Mark Lipton Professor of Chemistry Purdue University