What is Riedel smoking?

Flipping through yesterday’s Off Duty section in The Wall Street Journal, I see an ad for a new Riedel glass, designed for New World Pinots, Nebbiolo and Rose Champagne.

WTF? That is a bizarre combination of wines that are poles apart from each other. It’s hard to see a Russian River pinot and a Barolo having much of anything in common. And who would want to drink Champagne from what amounts to a Burgundy bowl?

Riedel went over the edge in the marketing BS with this one.

This new trick does sound quite entertaining, but I think they went off the deep end a long, long time ago.

I agree that they’ve gone a bit far with all of the different glasses, but I recently tried Champagne out of a Zalto Burgundy glass and it was completely amazing, FAR better on the nose than it was out of a couple of different smaller glasses. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rose Champagne in particular had a lot to gain by being drunk out of such a glass.

If people are dumb enough to buy them…

I drink champagne out of Burgundy glasses. Especially with broad oxidative wines like Selosse or Krug, they become that much more expressive.

And flat, however, I would think.

Yep. But personally I’ve always found the bubbles distracting. I’ve decanted champagne a few hours in advance before.

I drink my Champagne out of a Riedel Somm GC Brug glass…and love it that way. However, after last weekend…I’ll be looking to get some Zaltos. They do a great job of helping the wines shine…and the '96 Taittinger Comtes was nothing short of mind-bending out of that glass.

Roberto Conterno serve his reds in Zalto Burgundy. I do the same. I use Zalto universal or champagne for Champagne. I don’t see much issue with the Reidel combination. YMMV.

I can’t speak for the Zalto burgundy, but they appear to be huge glasses. The Universals however do a great job of living up to their name for me.

New World Pinots, Nebbiolo and Rose Champagne

If you drink a blanc de blanc or a Chardonnay-based Champagne, or any other sparkling wine from that glass it will probably taste horrific. Too bad because I drink more of that than rose Champagne. So I’m kind of screwed until they come out with the glass for sparkling Shiraz, Mourvedre and Muscadet, and hopefully soon after they’ll finally have a decent glass for Agiorghitiko, Zweigelt, and Root Beer.

Weren’t they talking about making soda-specific glasses? pepsi

They need separate lines for root days, flower days, various phases of the moon, and left-handed vs. right-handed drinkers. And they really should be doing some research on nostril dominance.

I much prefer sparkling a wines in a burgundy glass over a flute.

Add me to the list of people who drink champagne from Burg glasses. After all, it mostly is Pinot and Chardonnay. And, it generally does not stay in my glass long enough to get flat.

I prefer Champagne in my Zalto Universal. If not there, a reidel chardonnnay glass will do. I think it is a trade off between how fast the bubbles will go away and how much nose and nuance you can get. Typical champagne flutes are not for me.

Me too. I haven’t used my flutes in a while. Yet another example of how the classic glass doesn’t do the best job of showing off the wine.

I remember the show Vine Talk on PBS, with Satnley Tucci…

Some guy from Reifel was one of the guest tasters there and Tucci made a joke (and I don’t remember exactly how he said it) about how it was funny that a wine glass company recommends a different glass for each varietal. Everyone laughed, except the guy from Reidel.

I drink my GC Burgundies out of a Riedel Sommelier Port wine glass. Excellent. You really have to try this.

I tend to agree with this. I like drinking Champagne out of bowl glasses. I don’t usually decant, but don’t mind if the bubbles decline over the hours of drinking.