I was graciously invited, recently, to an Arizona Wine Growers Association (www.arizonawine.org) meeting at Coronado Vineyards (www.coronadovineyards.com) in Wilcox after which the entire group was treated to a seminar by George Riedel of Riedel stemware. If you’re a wine enthusiast, you would have to live in a cave to have not heard of the company and the man. The origins of the Riedel tradition go back to the late 1600’s where one Johann Christoph Riedel traded luxury glass. The next generation, Johann Carl Riedel, was a gilder and glasscutter and the rest is, as they say, history. I was really looking forward to Georg’s presentation. I have read a bit about his passion and marketing expertise and wanted to see if he lived up the hype.
After the meeting was complete, we adjourned to a room where each table setting included a set of seven glasses. Georg politely greeted each participant, directing him or her to a vacant seat, his palm upright as he gestured to our chosen location. It all felt a bit European.
Then with a “shhhhh,” Georg quieted down the crowd and introduced himself, prefaced by “welcome ladies and gentlemen, my name is Georg Riedel.” From the outset, Georg commanded the utmost attention and respect, as much in words as in affect. He was almost professorial in his response when one of the attending vintners began to sniff some wine prematurely. Upon catching wind of the impropriety, Georg politely shook his finger in a no-no-no manner, begging patience until he was ready to issue explicit instructions. The rest of the crowd laughed, relieved, I’m sure that it was not they who were pointed out.
Georg then proceeded to explain the purpose of each of the seven glasses. One was the Riedel equivalent of their “everyday” wine glass. Then there were two each for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Bordeaux, each set of two containing alternative shaped glasses.
As Georg guided the group through the tasting of a Sonoma Chardonnay, an Oregon Pinot Noir and a Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon, I began to understand why he is such a successful marketer. He is intensely focused upon the task at hand, namely to effortlessly draw you into his passion for Riedel fine stemware, to persuade you that Riedel stemware is a necessity in order to extract the maximum in aroma and flavor from the wine. His words were carefully chosen in a calculated and measured fashion and made eye contact with most of the audience, making you feel, for just an instant, as if only you were in the room.
Over the next hour, we poured wine first into one glass and then into its alternate, cautioned by the master that the wines would not taste the same in each. This, we were educated, was due to the alternate shapes of the two glasses, even though each was designated by Riedel himself as a glass for the same varietal. On occasion, Georg would suggest that we transfer the varietal from its “natural” glass to the solo everyday piece of Riedel stemware. This, he intimated, would suppress, nearly all of the wine’s attributes, leaving what you might envision to be a flat wine. Time after time, the much of the audience would gasp in surprise at Georg’s accurate prognostication, shaking their heads up and down as if to say “ yes, Georg, you’re right.” By the end of the session, it almost felt like an ole fashioned medicine show act, the crowd ready and willing to purchase whatever it was being sold. Ok, maybe I exaggerated this a little but you get the image.
As we wrapped the seminar, Georg made the point that if the attending vintners wanted their tasting room public to get all they could out of their wines, well….they should serve it in Riedel varietal specific glasses. When one vintner asked the about how to navigate the volume and expense of glasses needed for their tasting crowd, Georg spritely answered “ well you can just order the everyday glasses, of course.” As the seminar wound down, another vintner exclaimed, “ you did a marvelous job here today,” and the crowd echoed their support with a loud round of applause.
So what do I think of the man, his passion and his product? Clearly, the Riedel company produces elegant, top of the line stemware. Of that there is no doubt. The glasses are stunning pieces of glass sculpture, enhancing any table setting. As well, Georg is clearly impassioned for his stemware, as well he should. He is, truly, a polished marketer and I say that in flattering terms. He owns a highly publicized and marketable product and presents it to the public in the most convincing manner, even if it requires planting the subconscious seeds of suggestion.
As to the nebulous question of how much difference alternative shapes of stemware make in the aromatic and taste profile of a given wine, that’s open to question. When you’re talking about such subjective elements as smell, taste and sight, there will always be differing opinions. On the one extreme, that is, the difference in the behavior of a wine placed in an everyday, small water tumbler versus a larger, more open and perhaps varietal specific glass, I can detect a difference. The aromas don’t seem to be as sharp in the tumbler. My rational is that the tumbler is too confined to allow for effective swishing and coating of the inner surface, thus inhibiting the effective release of aromatic molecules that otherwise would be more obvious in the confined bowl of a larger glass…….makes sense to me. As well, I just find it a bit boorish visually to house a fine wine in the same glass as water, coke, etc. I’ve written about this before in my Blog. You don’t get to appreciate the wine’s color and its texture. I make no apologies here for my opinion here. It just bugs me!
However, once you move on to the question of whether a wine’s expression is discernibly different in varietal specific glasses of different shapes, that becomes a more heated debate. While Georg will most certainly support that contention, others are less convinced. You can read more about this in my Wine Stemware article. The upshot here is that the studies, conducted with seasoned wine tasters and blinded, do not seem to vindicate Georg’s belief that small changes in glass shape or volume significantly alters a wine’s expression. In my case, I struggled to detect the nuance differences, despite alternative opinions from the crowd and Georg. Perhaps my palate is just not as discerning as others.
This debate is not one that will be subdued easily. It reminds me of the debate over “terroir.” Both are very subjective and potentially emotional in nature. Get the French talking about terroir and you can just feel the heat rising in the room. Disagree with Georg and you can feel his intensity and passion for his product rising. I think it’s good to have discourse and debate. In the end, it offers the opportunity for thought and education. One thing I do know for certain…………there will be no tumblers for me…….
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