The best wine glass in the world?
There's stiff competition...
Zalto, Riedel, and, now, Jancis Robinson: names synonymous with great glassware that enhance our enjoyment of wine. Jancis, however, is a bit different.
She has eschewed the infinitude of possible bespoke glass shapes and sizes to match a similarly infinitesimal labyrinth of particular wine styles.
Instead, she has just one. One glass to bind them all.
In working with celebrated designer Richard Brendon, who has a stellar reputation for craftsmanship, Jancis was unwaveringly exacting on what she wanted.
As she says herself on her website:
- A gossamer-thin glass with an almost impossibly thin rim to put the taster in as close contact with the wine as possible, so the glass had to be individually mouth-blown by skillful, experienced artisans
- A stem that is tall enough to allow even the big-handed to swirl comfortably without affecting the temperature of the wine, but thick enough to preclude easy breakage, and short enough to fit easily into a dishwasher and on a shelf in a normal domestic cupboard
- Dishwasher-friendly (this is possibly Jancis' personal top-priority)
- A generous bowl going in towards the rim that captures the all-important aroma and allows energetic swirling to encourage it with no danger of losing any wine over the rim, but is not so wide as to make storage difficult, or measures of wine appear mean or stingy
- An opening at the top that is big enough for the big-nosed but not so big that spillage would be a problem
- A capacity that yields maximum surface area with an average pour of about 125 ml
