Friday, July 10, 2009

Stem, No Stem, -- Decanter, No Decanter

A friend & I were chatting about making good on our promise to go for a glass of wine after work some night soon and she suggested a place near the office that sounds fabulous. I don't see it on the menu, but apparently they have something called truffle fries..... hand cut steak fries drizzled with a blue cheese sauce of some description -- my God, I'd be in heaven.

Anyway, my friend mentioned that the only downside to this place was they serve the wine in stemless glasses -- her feeling is that she drinks the wine too fast in this type of glass, as opposed to the traditional wine glass. I actually like the stemless glasses.... but the set I have came with a decanter and I mentioned that I have never actually used a decanter..... do people actually do that? Maybe it's that my budget wines don't call for a decanter.

Thoughts?

5 comments:

Sue said...

The only time I see wine decanted is at business dinners when a high end wine is ordered....I think for our purposes (and for the record I think the wines we usually drink are just as good as the fancy wines) we don't need to let the wine breathe...stemless glasses? I'm on the fence on that one.

Nan said...

I like using a decanter during dinner as it looks nice on the table. I have found with the heavier red wines that it does help to let them breath a bit (at least better for my heartburn). Only bad thing about a decanter - I learned the hard way not to store my leftover red wine in the decanter as it will stain the glass. Oops!!!

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

I only decant if I am drinking red wine that costs more than $20 per bottle.

As for stemless glasses big ups. They fit much more nicely in my dishwasher.

I love them for reds only. If you use them for white your hands warm up the wine.

TwoBusy said...

Personally, I can't stand stemless glasses. It sounds absurd to say this, but it makes the wine-drinking experience feel somehow less elegant to me.

Decanter? We have one, and have only used it when expressly directed by a wine store guy. Which means we've used it... uh... maybe four times in ten years. (But the wine store guy was completely right in each case.)

Kaz said...

I second what Sarah said - stemless glasses warm the wine faster. That being said, I often catch myself "cupping" the stemmed wine glasses anyhow.