Large wine glasses

The grape shapes the glass more than the capacity does. Pinot noir and other Burgundies call for a wide, rounded bowl that tapers towards the rim, like the 96 cl Definition Burgundy glass from Spiegelau; that shape collects the delicate aromas that would otherwise drift away. Bordeaux, cabernet and syrah are heavier and want a taller, slightly narrower bowl, which is exactly what the 55 cl Supremo Bordeaux from Luigi Bormioli and the 64 cl Symphony from Stölzle Lausitz are built for. If you are not sure, take a universal glass of 40 to 47 cl such as Open Up from Chef & Sommelier.

Then comes the question most people are really asking when they go looking for large glasses: how strong is this? On thin crystal bowls the weak point is the stem, not the bowl, and a short thick stem is clearly more robust than a long slender one. Machine-pressed glass with a reinforced stem join, like the hospitality ranges from Chef & Sommelier and Stölzle Lausitz, survives a restaurant dishwasher for years. If you want thick-walled glass that can take a knock, look at the heavier models with a solid foot.

Fill to the widest point of the bowl and no higher. In a 65 cl glass that works out at about a third, so twenty centilitres, which is also a normal pour. Fill any further and the wine sits above the point where the bowl curves inwards, and you can no longer swirl without spilling; it is precisely that swirl that brings oxygen into the wine and releases the aroma.

Temperature matters even more with large glasses. A generous bowl has a lot of surface area, so red wine warms up faster than you think, and sixteen degrees is better than the room temperature of a heated house. Hold the glass by the stem. If you want a young wine to open up faster, pour it into a decanter; twenty minutes of air does more than half an hour of swirling. For a sangria or a generous aperol spritz a large bowl is handy too, because it takes plenty of ice.

Almost every wine glass on this page is lead-free crystal glass, in which potassium, zinc or titanium replaces the lead oxide. That gives a harder glass that can be drawn thin without chipping straight away, and it is the reason a modern 96 cl bowl can still have a wafer-thin rim. That rim is the first thing to go, though, so never let glasses touch each other.

Large bowls are awkward in the dishwasher, simply because they do not fit. Fold away a row of basket prongs if you need to and set the glasses at an angle, with the bowl clear. A short programme at fifty to sixty degrees preserves the shine. Dry with a lint-free cloth: hold the bowl and turn the cloth inside it rather than twisting the stem, because that is exactly the movement that snaps stems off.

If you are after something smaller, the overview of all wine glasses gives you the full range, and from there you can click through to the red wine glasses or the narrower white wine glasses. The brand supplying the largest bowls here has its own page: Spiegelau. If you want a young wine to open up faster than swirling allows, the decanters are the quicker route. And if half a bottle is left over, the wine stoppers keep it drinkable for another day by holding in the carbonation pressure and keeping oxygen out of the bottle.