Why Glasses Are Used To Drink Wine From

By Author: Tim Greyton
Total Articles: 30
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There is something universally appreciated about wine. It has been enjoyed all over the world for thousands of years and the cup of choice is almost always the glass. What we should be asking ourselves however is, how come glass? Why not from a plastic cup, mug or wooden goblet? The answer is unfortunately not that simple. You will find in fact a number of different alternative materials used in various countries that wine is drunk from. For example, wooden cups are used in Thailand and in Japan they often drink their wine from a ceramic vase-like cup. However, the overriding choice of tableware drinking vessel, wherever you go, is glass. It's really more a result of other methods not being appropriate than glass being that special in any way. Lets examine what else is on offer.

Wood. Wine is indeed drunk from wooden vessels as highlighted previously, although it doesn't come without some big downsides. Firstly, if you are drinking red wine there is a high chance the wood will stain. Even if the wood is of a very high quality, staining will happen. Further to this, wood has a habit of rotting when its remains wet for ...
... any great length of time. So it would have to be dried out thoroughly after every use.

Metal. If you've ever used a metal vessel to consume wine from, you'll understand how the flavour is not quite right. 'displacement' is the chemical reaction that causes this and it comes about as a result of metal have a very high count of 'ions'. This essentially means that often a number of the metal's ions displace into the wine and this causes an alteration in the flavour. This is why you often pick up metallic notes when drink from this type of cup. Also, because of its very heat-conductive qualities, almost any other material would keep the wine cooler when you're holding it

Ceramic. Like glass, ceramic is non porous, does not release any of its qualities into the wine, and can be easily cleaned with a glass cloth. For these reasons it utilised an an alternative, however it will never be as popular as glass due to one elemental floor - you can't see through it. Admiring a wine's colours and depth is a major part of any wine drinking experience. Since glass was first developed, we have had the very simple and instinctive desire for this.
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