Champagne, the ubiquitous party drink of choice, rarely goes down badly. From socialite soirees to liquid lunches, the crisp, dry sparkling wine can bring both an air of class and a tart, refreshing flavour to an event.
In the eyes of most people, champagne should be drunk from a classic narrow flute, with a long stem and thin body. However, one man - Austrian glassmaker Maximilian Riedel - is on a mission to show that there is in a fact a superior glass for champagne.
Form over function
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In a small private bar at The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, Riedel has set up a tasting where the aim is not to wow us with bold flavours, but to showcase the full potential of champagne away from the constraints of the iconic flute.
“Aesthetics is not always performance,” Riedel says, holding up one of his clear crystal champagne flutes to the light, before pouring a small sample of Taittinger Brut Champagne Prestige Rosé into it. “Every shape of glass boosts the aromas of champagne in a different way. The smell from the champagne flute reminds us of champagne, which is sad, because the flute really only communicates the yeast to the drinker.”
Encouraging us to take a sip, Riedel explains what is problematic about the physics of the flute design. Although it may sound overly scientific, the length and straightness of the flute causes the drink to almost “fall” into our mouths under gravity, disturbing the wine and converting much of it into dense foam once it hits the tongue.
“It's an explosion. It's carbon dioxide and it's sour. The palate is just foam,” Riedel says, adding that one of the main advantages of the flute was traditionally that servers at parties could cram as many as possible onto trays.
“If you are so against the flute,” I ask, “why does Riedel continue to manufacture them?”
“Because people ask me to,” he answers wryly.
Raising the glass
So if the traditional flute is no good, what is Riedel's suggestion for a suitable replacement?
Champagne used to be drunk from wide, flat glasses; think Leonardo DiCaprio in the Great Gatsby. Riedel's Veritas coupe has something of this shape - flat and rounded with an open lip. But while this may be ideal for a frozen margarita, Riedel shows that it in fact does even more of a disservice to champagne than the flute, noting that drinkers have to “suck” the champagne out of the coupe, converting even more of it to bitter, dry CO2.
For Riedel, the solution is simple; to stop treating champagne as a party drink and embrace it as a true member of the wine family. And with this in mind, his company launched an entirely new champagne wine glass in 2015 as part of its machine-blown Veritas range, personally designed by Maximilian and his father Georg at the Riedel Crystal headquarters in Kufstein, Austria.
The champagne glass - named to distinguish it from the flute - is similar to a white wine glass, with a wafer thin stem, wide rounded body and a thin rim, almost resembling a tulip. Once the champagne is poured into it, Riedel again asks us to swill the wine before bringing it up to our noses. By letting the wine sit in a rounder glass while concentrating the aromas through a narrower rim, the wine's bouquet of sweet floral aromas emerge from the glass, entirely stripping the wine of its sour yeast smell.
The taste too is enhanced, lingering longer on the palate. What's more, the foam has totally vanished, with a gently sparkling sensation complementing the flavours instead of obscuring them. The improvement is surprisingly dramatic.
Riedel also hopes to transform champagne into a drink that can be sipped throughout a meal like wine, its flavours now given more space to complement a variety of dishes, free from its usual dryness.
Riedel is famed for its dedication to designing specific glasses for specific wines, meaning that, when asked what the closest white wine glass would be for those who want to try this experiment at home, he answers: “Well, none”. To Riedel, his carefully crafted champagne wine glass will always be the best option.
But this doesn't mean that this is the only glass that offers a level of transformation. Riedel also demonstrates the value of using one of the company's enormous pinot noir glasses in its place, its rounded bowl-like dimensions again giving the rose wine an explosive, rich nose of fruit while deadening its obtrusive fizz.
Riedel is undoubtedly fighting an uphill battle by attempting to change people's minds on which glass they choose for champagne. Having fought for two decades to convince people to turn away from flutes, the traditional glass still dominates.
However, the more demonstrations he offers, the more chance that in the not-so-distant future, we won't be shocked if we are offered Taittinger in a more rounded glass, and served alongside an evening meal rather than canapés and fireworks.
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