Why is it that wine-'experts' rather drink champagne from a crystal than from a plain glass (with the same shape)?
Is it because
- crystal shows the colour of the champagne better
- crystal gives more bubbles
- crystal gives a better 'ring' whit the toast
Maybe more than one of these criteria is true, but what would be the most important for the expert?
Martijn
Salut/Hi Bertje,
le/on Wed, 26 Nov 2003 11:23:59 +0100, tu disais/you said:-
They don't. Or rather, I don't know one who does.
The theory is that the bubbles won't stick to crystal the way they supposedly do to glass. Friends of mine once tested this theory to advance the horizons of knowledge and found that it took more sparkling wine than anticipated to be absolutely sure that sticky bubbles weren't, after all, a problem.
First the term "crystal" has a rather vague meaning in reference to glasses. It usually means a glass that has a high lead oxide content, but it does not have a crystalline structure in the scientific sense. Some features of high lead content glass are : it is more easy to cut and polish than many glasses, it has a high refractive index and sparkles more than most glasses, it is quite heavy. Lead glass "crystal" has long been very popular in northern Europe. However the traditional Bohemian glasses used by Moser and others often did not contain lead. Likewise some of the famous glasses in the Venice area, including the islands, contained no lead. You will pay a small fortune at auction for the best old examples from Moser and others that contain no lead. Moser also has used lead glass and some very unusual glasses including those with a high rare earth cotent. These days most like a clear glass with an uncut bowl so that they can see the wine well. In the past many were not interested in the looks of the wine, and many wine glasses were highly decorated works of art. Some of the wines in the past were not very clear, so havng these wines somewhat hidden perhaps even was an advantage.
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ROFL!
Wish I'd been there, doing the judging. :^D
Tom S
What theory? Whose theory? I have heard statements of Georg Riedel that sounded equally unlikely (regarding how surface structure of glass could affect taste of wine), but this one is new to me -- and sounds like complete claptrap.
ROFL!! Ah, the things we do in the name of science... ;-)
Mark Lipton
"CuteCat" wrote in news:j7dxb.16122$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:
Friends of mine once tested this theory to
I do believethat it is high time that intense scientific research be done on this essential matter. I hereby volunteer to be a part of this important and highly worthwhile endeavor.
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