[wine] Tail of the missing stem.

Mostly for Russ/Sue, but thought it of general interest. Cheers, Jim May 11, 2006 Online Shopper A Stemless Glass (and Otto Keeps His Tail) By MICHELLE SLATALLA IN so many ways, Otto is an ideal dog. He does not dig in the garden or chew chair legs. He has never raided a kitchen counter, even for unprotected roast beef. He watches benignly while our little dog Sticky struggles to drag away his bone as if it were a felled redwood. So I hesitate to complain about Otto's tail. True, it is a big, swishing, street sweeper of a tail. Inside the house, his tail wreaks more havoc than a billy club. One casual swipe at the coffee table can knock over an entire cocktail party's worth of wineglasses. But I realized, as I dabbed at red wine stains and picked slivers of glass from the rug the other day, that it was not necessarily Otto's fault. How graceful would any of us be if we were Labrador retrievers trying to manage a 13-inch tail? Still, something had to be done. Tail-reduction surgery was not an option. I turned to the Internet for help, and there I found a novel solution: stemless wineglasses that the tail will have a tougher time toppling. Stemless is a trend that has been gaining followers. In 2004, the glassmaker Riedel Crystal introduced an O series of lead-free crystalline stemless glasses in six different styles, designed to complement such different grape varietals as cabernet and chardonnay. The glasses, which look more like egg-shaped tumblers than anything else, are plentiful these days at online stores. At wineenthusiast.com, for instance, a set of eight (four red wine glasses and four white wine glasses) was $67.80. In recent months, many variations of the stemless style have become available at prices ranging from $1.95 a piece (for "casual no-stem, no-frills, un-goblets" at Crateandbarrel.com) to $100 for two Waterford crystal glasses at Michaelcfina.com. Target.com has a set of four for $14.99 and Amazon.com even has a set of four "tipsy tumblers" with tilted rims for $29.95. I can understand the appeal. Stemless glasses fit compactly into a dishwasher. They take up less room in a cabinet. Their egg shapes lend a casual and modern air to place settings at a dinner party. It's the sort of idea that seems obvious. But I wondered what was the inspiration for this style. I asked a Riedel representative, "Does someone at Riedel by any chance have a big Labrador retriever?" No, said Kathleen Talbert, a spokeswoman for the company. "They came about because Maximilian Riedel, the C.E.O. of Riedel Crystal of America, moved from a large house on Long Island to a small house in Hoboken and realized he didn't have enough room for his wineglasses," Ms. Talbert said. "He started thinking about what is taking up the space. It was the stem. He sent drawings to Austria, where they tasted wine in the glasses and made a few adjustments." Ms. Talbert said the tumbler's egg shape collects aromas in the headspace of the glass, bringing out a wine's best qualities. The trick, she added, was to fill the glass less than halfway . one-third full was ideal . to leave room for the aromas to gather. "How well does the egg shape repel tail attacks?" I asked. "I have cats," said Ms. Talbert, whose pets jump on the table. "Most of the glasses, if you tip them over gently, will tip right back. Remember Weebles? Like Weebles, the glasses wobble but they won't fall down." I still had qualms. Without a stem to hold, I would have to cup the tumbler in my hand. Wouldn't warmth from my fingers heat the wine? Wouldn't the temperature change alter the taste? "If you're having a glass of wine at dinner, you drink from it and put it down, instead of holding onto it to warm it up," Ms. Talbert said. Still, I wanted a second opinion. I phoned Hildegarde Heymann, a viticulture professor at the University of California, Davis, who recently completed a study of cheese eaters, discrediting the theory that eating cheese enhances the flavor of red wine. "I don't know if anyone has sat down and figured out how much you heat up a glass by picking it up, taking a sip and putting it down," she said. "But obviously if you hold onto a glass it will warm up." "So stemless could be a bad thing for the wine?" I asked. "It may depend on the wine," Professor Heymann said. "If you have a really good wine, you might want to heat it up a little. With a really bad wine, you don't want to heat it up because you want to minimize the volatiles that come out. You may want to drink it straight from the refrigerator." "Sometimes I even put an ice cube in cheap white wine," I said. "Me too," she said. Emboldened, I made a confession. "Riedel recommends only filling the glass one third of the way to enhance aromas," I told her. "But I have lots of children, and I drive a lot of car pools, and I have a job. And at the end of the day, sometimes I fill the glass, um, a little higher so I can feel like I am only having one glass." Professor Heymann said: "Then you just have to buy a bigger glass." By this time, I felt like Professor Heymann was someone I could really talk to and, if she didn't live more than an hour's drive away, perhaps invite over for a glass of wine sometime. But could a serious wine scientist survive a run-in with Otto's tail? Would a drive-by swishing unglue her? "Do you by any chance have a dog?" I asked. "Cats," she said. (Hers don't get on the table.) "But I've been very well known in restaurants for gesturing and having glasses knock over." "You have?" "Yes, and we just bought some stemless Riedels," she said. "I'm very pragmatic when it comes to what I do at home." I am too. I bought Riedel glasses from wineenthusiast.com in two sizes, chardonnay and "bigger." E-mail: Slatalla(a)nytimes.com -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *