Author: Lucaris

Is there a proper amount of wine to pour in a wine glass? The fact that this is a concern for you shows that you are after a more refined wine drinking experience.

There is a proper size of wine to pour and it depends very much on the glass you are pouring into. The goal of wine glass design is to accentuate the flavor of wine by allowing aeration (wide bowl) and concentrating the aroma to your nose (narrow rim) for a full-flavored sip that enhances the wine to its full potential.

Therefore the proper amount of wine to pour in a wine glass is the amount that will best allow a wine to aerate (or breathe) in that particular glass and allow you to swirl the wine without spilling.

What Is Aeration?

So what is aeration and why is it important? Aeration is simply allowing the wine to mix with the air. Many people use the word “breathe” instead of aeration.

There is a chemical reaction when the O2 (oxygen) in the air touches the wine called oxidation. We won’t go into a full chemistry lesson, but suffice it to say that oxidation can be a good thing for wines.

Oxidation will make the wine taste smoother. It’s a bad thing if the wine is left out too long though as oxidation will eventually age the wine, combined with CO2 (carbon dioxide), and make the wine acidic.

Aeration’s effect on wine depends on the type of wine. For example, 99% of white wines do not need aeration. Red wines on the other hand are complex. Aeration has the biggest impact on wines with high tannins (Merlots, Shiraz, Chianti, Cabernets) and young wines, which are usually high in tannins.

Does The Glass Matter?

All of that being said, you will want to choose a wine glass that will accentuate the flavor of wine through proper aeration, swirling and give the wine nose (bouquet smell). LUCARIS crystal wine glasses are all designed with this in mind, making them the perfect wine glass of choice for your favorite wines.

You haven’t tried wine until you’ve tried it in a LUCARIS wine glass.

Today we’re going to discuss the two important facets that go into pouring the optimal glass of wine: how to hold the bottle and how much wine to pour. If you pair this knowledge with what you learned in our previous articles – how to order the right wine and how to properly handle a wine – you’ll definitely be ahead of the crowd when it comes to selecting, pouring and savouring the perfect glass of vino.

How to Pour

Without a doubt, after selection, the second scariest part of handling wine is the fear of spilling it. Liquid has the annoying tendency to stick to glass and drip when it is not poured quickly enough. To avoid embarrassing spills on your table, carpet or worse yet, your date, begin by holding the bottle of wine properly. Pick up the wine bottle from the base and pour directly into the glass in one smooth movement, abruptly stopping when you have poured a sufficient amount (more on that in the next paragraph). To avoid drips, rotate the bottle up and away from you as you lift it away from the glass.

How Much to Pour

When ordering a glass of wine in a restaurant, we’re always more than happy to receive a generous pour. In our own home, we tend to fluctuate between overly generous and overly stingy, depending on the quality and quantity of wine on hand. Regardless of the glass size or wine in question, is there a right or wrong amount of wine to pour? Absolutely! It is universally agreed that there are five glasses of wine per standard 750ml bottle. That equals 150ml (5 ounces) per glass.

Why is 150ml the Standard Pour

Firstly, keep in mind that wine tastes best when it is allowed to breathe. We drink wine from wine glasses and not from normal cups because they are designed to accentuate the aroma and flavor of wine by letting it breathe. A 150ml pour ensures that a standard size glass of wine is not too full, leaving room for the wine to breathe. If remembering and estimating the size of the pour sounds like too much work (especially a few glasses into the evening!), a good rule of thumb is to pour wine to the widest part of the bowl of the wine glass. Unless you’re pouring sparkling wine in flutes, in which case you go to the top (but not the brim). Because wine glasses come in a plethora of shapes and sizes, pouring wine up to the widest part of the bowl, instead of obsessing over the exact quantity (ml) of each pour, will ensure the wine tastes best for that particular glass.

Like most things in life, the best way to perfect your wine pour is to practice, practice, practice. So go forth and forage for your favorite bottle(s) of wine, line up the appropriate LUCARIS wine glasses, pour away and enjoy!

There is a proper and improper way of handling wine when your audience is more than just your TV and sofa. Let’s face it, there is definitely a layer of judgment to how wine is handled. We notice how someone pronounces wine (for pronunciation tips, read our article here), how the bottle is opened, how the wine is poured, what glass is used (for pro insights, read our article here), how much of the glass is filled, the temperature at which the wine is served, how the glass is held, and how the wine is imbibed.

Depending on your role – from ordering at a restaurant to hosting a dinner party or making sure everyone’s glass remains full at a social event – you will be under different levels of scrutiny by all those present. Really? Yes! Without saying a word, handling wine is one way to show your poise or lack thereof. Without further ado, let’s get started with our lesson in silent sophistication.

1] Opening a bottle of wine

Corks are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, with more and more wineries opting to sell their tipples with a convenient screw cap (especially ‘New World’ wines from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Chile). If your wine does not require decanting, then simply twist the cap off and pour a glass for you and your guests. It can be aerated for enhancement by simply swirling it in the glass before drinking. Trust us! there’s no better way to make a good impression than to uncork a bottle of wine with finesse. This is a skill well worth learning. If you have a bottle with a cork then use a corkscrew.

Most importantly, make sure to screw far enough into the cork so that the cork does not break off mid-way when pulling it out. However, make sure you don’t screw so far in that you drop small bits of cork into the wine. Once the corkscrew is deep enough, hold the wine firmly with one hand and, depending on the type of corkscrew you’re using, either pull the corkscrew with a consistent force until the cork is out or pull the lever on the corkscrew until the cork pops out. Most importantly, don’t grunt; don’t hold the wine between your legs; don’t hold the wine under your arm, and don’t use your teeth!

2] Pouring a glass of wine

Once you have proven yourself the hero or heroine of the hour by opening the bottle of wine with aplomb, begin pouring wine for your guests. Hold the bottle from the base, not side or neck, and pour. For red and white wine, fill the wine glass up to the widest section of the glass. Do not overfill.

Overfilling will not give the wine space to breathe, thus depriving your guest of the full flavor and taste of the wine. Needless to say, the type of wine glass you are using should be appropriate to the wine you are pouring, i.e., there are different and appropriate glasses for full- or light-bodied red wine; rose or spicy red wine; sparkling wine; light-bodied white wine; and fortified sweet wine.

3] Holding a glass of wine

This one is short and easy. By the stem, never from the bowl. Why? You don’t want the warmth of your hand to affect the wine’s temperature. Holding the wine glass from the stem also allows you to more easily swirl the wine. It also avoids unsightly fingerprints on the bowl of the wine glass.

4] Drinking wine

Wine is meant to be sipped, not sculled, save that for your beer. In the case of red and white wine, giving it a swirl aerates the wine and releases important aromas, thus making it tastier to drink. A few swirls at the beginning are okay, just don’t go overboard. No need to swirl before every sip or until there’s wine flying out of your glass in every direction (unless you’re attending a Bacchanal)!

5] Toasting

A fun part of drinking wine is toasting. Every culture has a word, from “Cheers” and “Salut” to “Kanpai”. When toasting, clink your glass from the bell, the bottom part of the bowl, to avoid weakening or breaking the glass. It is also considered polite in most cultures to make eye contact when toasting.

Following these five simple lessons will make you look like a natural when handling wine for yourself or others. Bottoms up!

Knowing which wine to order at a restaurant can be a daunting task for even an experienced connoisseur. You feel the eyes of your fellow diners boring into you and the restless server standing at your shoulder. You nervously scan the menu looking for something you know, something reasonably priced and, hopefully, something you can pronounce without embarrassing yourself. You find an Italian wine that looks promising, alas, your heart sinks, you have no idea how to pronounce Valpolicella Classico! Is it val-po-li-se-ya like it would be in Spanish or val-po-li-se-la like it looks? Well, actually, it is val-po-lee-che-la. At times like this, you desperately wish you had more wine basics knowledgeable at your disposal.

Don’t despair, we are here to help! So you can avoid tripping over your tongue and losing face when ordering wines, we have made a quick pronunciation guide, to help you navigate the world of wine with ease and aplomb. As there are many websites explaining how to pronounce popular kinds of wines like Chianti, Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah and Pinot Noir, we’ve created a regional language guide, to help you choose wines specifically from the Old World Big Three: France, Spain and Italy. So grab a glass of your favourite wine and let’s get started!

We will begin with the French. It is common for French words to have syllables such as “-eau”, found in Chateau. To someone unfamiliar with French, this word may seem to be pronounced as “chat-ew”, but actually it is pronounced, “sha-toe”. The same applies to the syllable “-aux”, like in Bordeaux (bor-doe) or Margaux (mar-go). Naturally, no real Francophile guide is complete without the word Champagne, pronounced “shawm-pine”. And lastly, another very popular wine region that is good to have up your sleeve is Beaujolais, pronounced “bo-joe-lay”. Right, now that you’ve got the hang of things, let’s move on…

One of the beauties of the Spanish language is that the vast majority of words are phonetic, meaning that they are pronounced exactly as they are spelled. There are a few tricky sounds waiting to trip you up, such as the letter combination “ll”, as in Tempranillo. The double ‘L’ creates a “Y” sound in Spanish, so the word is pronounced as “tem-pra-ni-yo”. Another tricky letter is “H”. In Spanish, the “H” is actually silent as in “Haro” which is a sub-region of the famous Rioja region. The letter “J” is actually pronounced with an “H” sound, such as in “Rioja”, pronounced “ri-o-ha”.

Being that Italian wines still dominate the market and will be the most common bottles to cross your path, we’ll go ahead and list out some of the most ubiquitous Italian wines out there. But, before we do, one word of advice… keep an eye on the patterns, such as the pronunciation of “c” as “CH” when it comes after an “I” or “E”; the silent “g” before an “N”; the “ll” as a hard “L” sound; and “cc” as a strong “K” sound. There are exceptions to the rules of course. Okay, here we go:

• – Sangiovese (san-joe-veh-se)
• – Montepulciano (mon-te-pul-chee-a-no)
• – Valpolicella (val-po-lee-che-la)
• – Dolcetto (dol-che-to)
• – Lambrusco Secco (lam-bru-sko se-ko)
• – Pignolo (pi-no-lo)
• – Casavecchia (ca-sa-ve-kya)

And there you have it, a definite guide to navigating the world of wine pronunciation. So raise a wine glass and say cheers / santé / salud / saluit!

By the way, if you’re unsure about choosing the appropriate red wine, white wine and sparkling glasses to go with your selection, or indeed, choosing the ideal wine glass gift set, make sure you check out our last blog post “Selecting wine glasses as a gift for special occasions” with all the relevant details. After reading that, you’ll be an expert in selecting the perfect crystal wine glassware for any occasion.

We’ve all been there. You’re invited to a party or it’s the festive season and you need to give clients, vendors, colleagues or friends a special gift. A gift that will be remembered and appreciated are wine glasses. Why? Read on to discover how this humble, yet thoughtful gift is the one that will undoubtedly please the recipient now, and for many years to come.

Wine glasses may not seem like a big deal, but they are a detail that goes a long way in setting the mood and tone for any occasion where wine is being served. Someone that appreciates the finer things in life, including wine, will appreciate quality wine glasses.

So what should you look for in a wine glass to ensure your gift is received with admiration rather than embarrassment?

The first thing to remember is that it’s all about the wine, thus the right glass will both enhance the wine itself, and look classy and stylish at the same time.

We begin with color, as wine lovers adore the look of this god-like beverage, the way it swirls in the bowl and omits a fragrant bouquet of aroma. Let your red be bold and your white be clear. A fine, clear crystal glass will show the color of the wine to full effect. Thin glass is preferable to thick sturdy glass in this regard.

Then there’s temperature. A long stem is a key for keeping your warm hand away from the bowl of the wine glass. If you cup the bowl, your natural body heat will warm the wine, compromising its taste. Thus it is best to hold the glass from the stem with your fingertips. This also allows you to better swirl the wine for added flavor.

Let’s not forget the vital aroma, as 80% of what we taste comes from smell. It is essential then that a wine glass is crafted with a bowl that allows the aroma to rise towards your nose when you swirl and quaff. Too wide an opening and you lose the smell; too small an opening and you miss the smell. That is why you see bowls with wide bases, to allow the wine to breathe, swirl, and release properly.

And finally, the flow over the rim. Okay, maybe we’re being a bit cheeky with this one, but you want a rounded lip. One for the way it feels on your own lips, two for the way it smoothly flows out when you tilt the wine glass to drink, and three for not collecting wine on the rim. Again, it’s all about sophistication and elegance.

In conclusion, when referencing wine taste, there are three critical areas of importance in your choice of glassware: 1) clarity, 2) bowl, and 3) stem. To cover all these elements with ease and aplomb, we recommend the LUCARIS ‘SPARKLE’ Collection, which comes in three options: The Travelling Set, for drinkers on the go; The All-Purpose Set, for everyday imbibing, and The Sparkling Set, for champagne aficionados.

With LUCARIS your wine is in safe hands and your gift recipient will adore and remember you for years to come.

Haven’t we all heard of multiple do’s and don’ts concerning the ‘perfect’ way to enjoy wine? While wine tasting is considered to be a fun and relaxing activity, a lot of people prefer learning the right ‘techniques’ of enjoying wine. The internet is full of various articles imparting knowledge on the know-hows of wine drinking, however, the correct way of mastering the skill is actually going and tasting wine rather than spending hours researching it. However, if you believe that a little knowledge doesn’t hurt, then here’s our guide on how to be a wine connoisseur under 3 minutes.

Click to know about the 5 basic types of wines.

The main key to learn wine tasting like a pro is tapping into your senses. If you have been frequenting wine tasting events, you might have already seen wine professionals evaluating the color of the wine and then sniffing it.

See

The color and appearance of the wine play a major role in determining its origin and quality. The easiest way to do this is by tilting the glass against a white background and observing its color and the way it coats the glass. While the coating on the glass determines the wine’s complexity, the age of the drink can be predicted by its tint, as wines aged longer are known to have a darker pigment.

Sniff

Every wine brings with it, its unique bouquet of aromas. A bouquet comprises the original smell and flavour of the wine. Each time you swirl your glass, the wine comes in contact with the air, helping it diffuse its scent. Sniffing the wine helps you judge its age and quality. While a young wine has a fruity smell, the older ones generally smell more like grass or oak.

Click to know more about how swirling your glass makes your wine taste better.

Taste

Finally, the most important part of acknowledging a wine to the fullest is tasting it. The taste of the wine tells you lot about the origin of the wine, the ripeness of the grapes it was made from and also the climate in which they were grown. It is necessary for the wine to coat your taste buds fully to make the most of its flavour. For this, you’ll have to swish the wine across your mouth and swallow it slowly, focussing on the taste that comes from the back of your throat.

Food and Wine Pairing

Another important aspect of learning the art of wine tasting is knowing how to pair a specific food preparation with an appropriate wine.

While pairing food with the correct wine can be quite a daunting task, it’s a skill you can easily acquire once you get familiar with your palate. A lot of factors like acidity, weight, sweetness and flavour of the wine is to be taken into consideration while making the pairs. While the basic principle of white with white meat and red with red prevails, there’s no harm in trying different combinations to come up with a perfect pair that suits your taste buds.

Click to know more about the detailed techniques of pairing wine and food.

Here are some tips that can help you enjoy your wine tasting session to the fullest. However, studying the theory is never enough. So pick up your LUCARIS glassware, pour yourself a glass of wine to enjoy some practical sessions and do let us know how these tips worked for you in comments below!

Looking for the right glasses to have an enjoyable wine-tasting evening? Check out LUCARIS’ exquisite collection of crystal glassware on https://www.lucariscrystal.com/crystal-collection

Cheers!

Do you try a particular wine and distinguish a specific characteristic that stays with you? This happens because of our naturally attuned palates. The palate is composed of our tongue, taste buds and our olfactory senses. Together, they help us identify different tastes, flavours and aromas during a culinary experience. Now we know that wine making is a complex process that yields various attributes to each wine. But if you want to truly enjoy the art and mastery that goes behind creating wine, keep these few simple tips in mind! 

Understand the basics of tasting wine

It all begins with a look. Look closely at the colour of the wine, take a moment to register what you’re about to taste. The next step is to inhale the aroma and identify the smell that the wine exudes. Give the glass a swirl, by doing this the wine releases all the aromas and flavours due to micro-oxidation. Take a whiff again, go ahead and sip!

Understand your palate

Our palate preferences are strongly influenced by your culture and habits. In India, spice and flavourful condiments form the very foundation of the cuisine. Tastes, flavours and aromas are strongly linked to previous experiences. Sometimes you may drink a particularly remind you of your favourite childhood candy or beverage. Or a wine may give off a floral scent of your favourite flower. 

Isolate flavours and visualise them 

Sometimes, you may have noticed people closing their eyes while tasting a wine. Constructing a visual image of the flavours you taste helps in identifying flavours. Do you smell a hint of vanilla, as well as a woody tint? Picture the flavors, try to isolate them; if you have imagined the flavor of cake, think about what particular ingredients might be in that cake. Is there vanilla? Can you detect cinnamon?

Identify particular flavours and the move on 

Our palate is a complex combination of sight, smell, taste and feel. Whenever we taste, our brain receives a flood of information. Take your time and observe the specifics: 

• Visual: shade of colour,intensity of colour, is it sparkling or still? 
• Smell: flavors through a combination of nasal and tongue sensors  
• Taste: sweet, sour, bitter, fruity, tangy 
• Sensation: the temperature of wine, intensity of alcohol, tannins, consistency 

Pay attention to texture and body

Texture adds to the flavor and gives a wine body. Your tongue can “touch” the wine and perceive its texture. For instance, when you taste a sip of wine with chewy tannins, it dries out the interior of your mouth so that you “chew” or clean the tannins out of the insides of your mouth. Oftentimes, you can rub your tongue on the roof of your mouth to identify features like minerality or tannin. Where does the tannin exactly hit you on your tongue?

Build a wine memory

Now that you know the key points of tasting a wine, work towards building a taste memory. Your wine memory is something you can refer to when tasting new wines and finding new favorites. Don’t forget to take notes during a wine tasting and note the characteristics of the wines that you enjoyed. 

Over time, your palate will evolve. Keep experimenting and practising your wine tasting skills. But remember, vino è piacere – wine is pleasure!

Just like we do, our wines too need a whiff of breath to bring out their full potential. Wines, especially vintage ones, stay trapped in the bounds of bottles for decades before they are opened for consumption. Bottling the wine often causes the aroma and flavors of it to stay suppressed. Hence, the process of aeration is very important to bring out the true taste of a wine.

The process of aeration is nothing but exposing the drink to air in a way that it gets oxygenated and its flavors and aroma are completely released.

One of the most vintage, classic and sophisticated way to aerate and oxygenize wine is using vessels like a decanter or a carafe.

However, not many know the difference between decanters and carafes.

Wine decanters, traditionally, are flat based vases with a wide bottom and a long, tapered and curved neck. Some decanters also come with stoppers to cover the wine poured till it gets well aerated and also slow the process of decomposition of the wine after getting in contact with the air.

Carafes are regular liquid storing vessels having an elongated body with a small base meant to hold a large volume of liquid without occupying much table space.

While Carafes are used more commonly to hold any kind of liquid ranging from water, juice and wine, Decanters are specifically used to hold wine, especially for significantly momentous occasions.

Decanters play a more important role when used for vintage and red wines. Vintage wines, since bottled for a long time, are more likely to contain sediments and crumbled cork while red wines are known for their excessive sediment content. Hence, a decanter plays its role here by helping filter the sediments and underlying bitter taste of preserved wines. This is a meticulous process that needs to be followed to prevent impurities in your glass.

In recent times though, decanters have started undergoing major changes in their structure, with various fancy designs and shapes.

To infer, the difference between a decanter and a carafe is that of shape, style, and purpose. While Carafes are elongated vessels used to serve water, juice, and wine, decanters are specifically meant to aerate and oxygenize wine for special occasions.

The decanters and carafes by Lucaris are manufactured with the glassmaking expertise of Toyo-Sasaki Glass of Japan, Ocean Glass of Thailand and the most advanced glass technology from Germany to enhance and evoke the flavors of every type of wine for every occasion.

Here’s our guide on the basic difference between carafes and decanters. We’re excited to know about your favorite decanting techniques. Share them with us in the comments section below!