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It's Alimentary! Trend Alert

Farewell to the flute?

The great Champagne houses as well as New Zealand's leading producers of premium sparkling wines – are increasingly serving their products in wine glasses.

BY JOHN CORBETT

2 September 2014

If you hold off from buying Champagne and sparkling wines because you don't have a smart set of flutes, worry no more. Some of the world's great Champagne houses – as well as New Zealand's leading producers of premium sparkling wines – are increasingly serving their products in wine glasses.

A case in point was the media events held in Auckland this week by Méthode Marlborough, where the tablescapes featured a starry line-up of ten premium sparkling wines from Marlborough served in tulip-shaped wine glasses. The wisdom of the choice soon became clear.

Since the experience of drinking wine is at least 50 per cent olfactory, a tulip-shaped glass that allows the aromas, or "nose", of a wine to be fully savoured has it way over flutes where the wine may sparkle prettily but cannot fully "open up", and old-fashioned coupe-style glasses from which aromas swiftly escape.

And aroma – the distinctive, rich, biscuity scent that belongs only to Champagne and high quality méthode traditionelle sparkling wines – is one of the hallmarks of the superlatively good sparkling wines promoted by Méthode Marlborough.

As Chairman Daniel Le Brun observed over lunch at swanky Botswana Butchery (Chicken Liver & Foie Gras Parfait on Brioche Toast; Grilled Hapuka Fillet with Pommes Mousseline; Savannah Beef Tartare with Free-Range Egg Yolk, all perfectly matched with premium Marlborough sparklings) the house of Krug, no less, serves its Champagnes in the Joseph, a tulip-shaped Champagne glass specially designed by Riedel. Riedel and Spiegelau have also recently created bespoke glasses for other major Champagne houses. The response from globally influential wine critics is encouraging.

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While a few Champagne houses continue to hold out in favour of the flute, it's amazing, as one of the leading wine writers at the lunch observed, how the simple choice of a different glass can enhance even wines of elegance and finesse. And in that regard, the way to better sparkling drinking for may already be sitting in your cabinet or cupboard: when in doubt, try a pinot noir glass. www.alimentary.co.nz

More about Méthode Marlborough soon...

ENDS

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