Online crystal glassware store Forever Crystal are giving away a pair of beautiful classic 24% lead crystal wine glasses on their blog, completely free! The stunning red wine flutes are part of the ever popular ‘Cross Swirl’ range, and are delicate flute shaped glasses with a classic spiral design. The glasses will be won by one lucky reader of the Forever Crystal blog, in the first of a new monthly competition. They are a truly special prize as each glass is handmade and hand cut, so that each glass is slightly different and unique.

If like me you enjoy a nice glass of wine, you are probably already aware of how much of a difference a good quality wine glass can make. Most people know that drinking from a lead crystal wine glass is more enjoyable than using regular ones and that they improve the taste and aroma of the wine. But not everyone knows that to get the most pleasure out of your wine using the right shape glass for the wine you’re drinking is equally important. Champagne, for example, is best drunk from tall thin flute shaped glasses which help it to retain its sparkling qualities. Red wines require a slightly larger bowl than whites, as they need more breathing space, and it’s easier to keep whites cool in a smaller glass.

Small, tulip-shaped white wine glasses are the most commonly used, as red wine glasses can often be chunkier and look a bit clumsy in comparison. These pretty ‘Cross Swirl’ red wine flutes are the best of both worlds, designed for reds with a larger bowl but keeping a more delicate shape than most. To be in with a chance of winning the free glassware, simply visit the Forever Crystal blog and enter your answer to the question, ‘What is the minimum Lead Crystal content required in Crystal Glassware?’ along with your name and contact email address. It really couldn’t be simpler! All correct answers will be entered into a prize draw and the lucky winner will be notified after the closing date on May 15th.

Post from: Sterling Silver Goblet

Win beautiful handmade Crystal Wine Glasses!

It is a popular belief that the glass in which you serve a fine wine is almost as important to your enjoyment of the drink as the wine itself. The shape, colour and fabric of wine glasses are all supposed to influence the way you appreciate the flavour and aroma of a wine. Whether there is really much truth to this or not remains to be seen but there are actually some convincing arguments that a wine does taste better if drunk from the right glass.

So how do we know which glasses we should be using? With thousands of different glasses out there it’s hard to know which ones will be the best. Most people agree that a specially designed glass is required for some types of wine. The most obvious example of this is tall, thin champagne flutes which are designed to retain the ‘fizziness’ in sparkling wines by reducing the surface area at the top of the glass. A serious wine drinker will also use different glasses for red and white wines – a rounder, wider bowl for reds to allow more space for the wine to breathe, and a slightly smaller, tulip-shaped bowl to help keep whites cool.

But some take this theory a lot further. Real wine geeks claim the difference between wines runs a lot deeper than just the colour, and that for each different variety of wine there is a glass designed specifically to enhance the experience of drinking it. No one has taken this further than Austrian wine glass manufacturer Riedel, the company that came up with the idea. They actually produce customised glasses not only for different types of wine, but also for all the different varieties and vintages within each type – although not many people could afford to collect the whole set!

As for what the glass is made from, many people believe a fine wine tastes better if drunk from a crystal glass. This is not strictly true – although using a lead crystal glass is usually considered to be more enjoyable. It’s actually less about flavour than aroma, the majority of what we ‘taste’ when we drink wine is in fact a combination of its smell and the the evaporated aromas in the mouth. Crystal wine glasses, due to their heightened lead content (for a glass to count as ‘Crystal’ in Europe it has to contain at least 24% lead) have a slightly rougher surface than glass, which helps to release the aroma better by causing friction as the wine moves inside the glass.

Aside from this, the differences are mostly aesthetic. A lead crystal glass is clearer so you can see the wine better, allowing real wine tasters to examine its ‘legs’ more easily. It’s also quite a lot heavier than glass – again because of the high lead content – sparkles more and makes that nice ringing sound when you tap it – science aside, crystal glasses are just generally more satisfying to drink from!

Post from: Sterling Silver Goblet

Does a crystal glass really make wine taste different?