Wine Glasses 101

It was because of his somewhat generously sized proboscis that my father complained that his nose did not fit comfortably in the very fashionable ruby-red cylindrical wine glasses housed in our upper right kitchen cabinets.

My father implored in earnest to my mother Can’t we just buy new ones that make sense?

My mother considered his inquiry to be rhetorical.

Because in the 1970’s, wine glasses only stood about 4 or 5 inches high, spanned just over 2 inches in diameter, and only held about 4 ounces of Burgundy or Chablis.

By today’s standards—wine glasses were small.

That was, until times changed---and everything became oversized.

By the mid 2000’s a typical serving of wine measured about 8 to 10 ounces. Wine glasses now stood 10 inches in height with a softball sized receptacle to house its fermented content.

And it was right around this time in glassware history— also a time when we switched from drinking Chardonnay to Merlot-- that it happened.

I was seated at a dinner party at the club when my storytelling became so hyper-animated that the back of my left hand accidentally lofted my oversized overfilled softball dimensioned wine glass such that the red liquid content tsunami-ed full frontal on my best friend’s apple green Ann Taylor silk sweater as well as my other friend’s brand new white Lacoste golf shirt.

Utter silence ensued.

No amount of club soda or blotting could mitigate the damage.

Super storm Sandy caused less wreckage than this natural disaster.

The Merlot stained sweater and golf shirt could have hung to the left and to the right of a Jackson Pollack canvas at MOMA.

And I am pleased to say that the new trend in glassware is stem-less. Wine glasses are ergonomically designed to topple like a Weeble, not loft like a softball. Spillage is relegated to the tablecloth and/or the keeper of the glass.

No more friendly fire.

These new elliptically constructed stem-less wine glasses have the added attraction of being    engineered to fit comfortably in the dishwasher—as well as around generously sized human proboscises---like those of my father.