Riedl's classic glasses

YOU wouldn't drink champagne out of a whiskey tumbler, the argument goes, so why not go the whole hog and use a glass specially designed for your favourite style of wine.

It's an argument around which Austrian Georg Riedl has built up a very successful business.

In 1973 Riedl produced their first Sommelier range of hand-made premium quality wine glasses. Now the range is vastly expanded and in 1997 600,000 glasses were sold in 60 countries.

The very simple idea behind the range is that the size and shape of a glass affects the way we perceive the wine's aromas and flavours.

It's main aim, therefore, is not to make the wine look attractive, but to improve our enjoyment of its contents.

Riedl has spent years designing specially shaped glasses for various grape varieties or styles of wine and has travelled around the world on a personal crusade to market them.

We are, of course, already familiar with the concept through the narrow champagne 'flute', for example, which helps champagne to keep its bubbles and the wide-bowled burgundy glass which helps release the beautiful fragrances of the region's pinot noir grape.

Georg Riedl has made a whole empire out of this knowledge. After years of research into the chemical compounds, flavours and fragrances of the world's wines, he has produced dozens of glasses, each one designed for a particular wine.

And he has enlisted the help of the world's top wine experts, oenologists and winemakers.

Riedl says that if the shape of the glass is right it will release the aromas and deposit the wine into the ideal part of your mouth to give maximum flavour.

Different areas of the mouth are sensitive to different tastes, so a wine like Riesling which has high acidity would be served in a glass shaped to place the wine onto a part of the nouth not so sensitive to aidity, and so on.

Riedl also produces very good quality cheaper glasses, too, which are designed along the same principles, but the hand-made Sommelier range is top-notch.

There are already over 30 glasses in this range and as more and more grape varieties come into common usage Riedl will develop glasses to best show off their qualities.

My personal view is that the glasses probably have a greater effect on the aromas than the flavours of the wine. And, although it is not Mr Riedl's priority, they are just beautiful to hold and drink from.

The Sunday News has six sets of two Riedl Sommelier Bordeaux Grand Cru glasses - worth pounds 43 each - to give away.

All you have to do is answer the three questions below, add your name, address and telephone number on a postcard and send it to

Sunday News 46-56 Boucher Crescent, Belfast BT12 6QY Normal Sunday News rules apply.

A Sommelier is:

a) a drinks trolley

b )an expert wine waiter

c) a style of French wine

Riedl believes that a wine glass should primarily:

a) look attractive

b) have a large capacity

c) enhance the wine in it

The principal red grape in Bordeaux (claret) is:

a) cabernet sauvignon

b) pinot noir

c) gamay

Riedl glasses are available from Mitchell and Sons, Kildare Street, Dublin; Equinox, Howard Street. Belfast and Direct Wine Shipments, Corporation Square,, Belfast.

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