Sip shape

Let Gabriel Suk help you choose the best wine glasses for maximum enjoyment

A wine glass is much more than a place to store a slug of liquid on its journey from the wine bottle to your mouth. Having great wine without a great wine glass would be like eating a beautiful cut of steak with a spoon.

The spoon certainly isn’t going to make the steak taste bad, but without the ability to cut it well, to place the perfect sized slice of meat in your mouth, you’re likely to miss out on a lot of its greatness.

Depending on size and shape, different wine glasses can highlight the different qualities of a wine. The bowl of a large Bordeaux glass, for example, can help release all the goodness hidden inside a complex fi ne wine.

Likewise, the design of a more narrow Champagne glass is essential for keeping the flavours together before you enjoy the effervescent explosion the drink unleashes on your palate when you take that first sip.

Before you build a collection of wine glasses for every grape varietal out there though, start off by making sure you have a solid set of everyday tasting glasses.

Most wine glass manufacturers will offer a standard tasting glass which is perfect for starting off your collection. This is sometimes called a red wine glass or simply a tasting glass.

But it should have a relatively nondescript size, average stem and normal bowl width.

When purchasing glasses, take into account the fact that you will break two or three along the way. Whether it’s after a night of joyous imbibing or simply the overzealous scrubbing of your hardworking ayi, wine glasses break, so plan for it.

Where to buy

ASC Fine Wines for Riedel

The world’s most renowned glassware company distributes exclusively through ASC Fine Wines in China.

Start simple with their Ouverture series, with glasses that start from 130RMB, or go crazy and try out the Somellier series, which ranges from 640-910RMB per glass.

Seventh Floor, Tianjie Dasha, D Tower, The Place, A9 Guanghua Lu, Chaoyang district (6587 3808; www.asc-wines.com).

Top Cellar For Eisch

Eisch is another top notch European glassmaker that has a spectrum of different glasses starting out at 90RMB for a Noble Red Wine Glass and ranging up to around 260RMB for their breathable glass series.

Priced a fair bit under the Riedel, these glasses might lack the pedigree, but will still treat your wine right.

Top Cellar, Central Park, 6 Chaoyangmenwai Dajie, Chaoyang district (6597 0024; www.topcellar.com.cn); Kerry Centre Hotel, 1 Guanghua Lu, Chaoyang district (139 1148 6749).

Montrose for Spiegelau For the perfect entry level glass, try the Spiegleu Red Wine glass. At an extremely reasonable 67RMB each, this is a high quality product that can function well with both red and whites (despite the name).

Montrose also carries a line of entry level glasses that lack a name brand and European lineage, but are a great starting point if you aren’t ready to lay down the big bucks.

At 22RMB per glass, you can afford to stock them in party quantities and won’t cringe when one inevitably fi nds its way into pieces on the ground. Building 7, Xibahe Beili, Chaoyang District (5126 7788; www.montrosechina.com).