Best substitute wine glass

servingwine

I occasionally find myself opening a bottle of wine at a friend's ill-equipped house, and don't have any wine glasses handy.

What type of serving cup/glass can I substitute for a proper wine glass in these situations? Specifically for red wine, but answers for other wines would be helpful, too.

I understand the reason for a long stem is to keep body heat away from the wine, so this makes me think may be a coffee cup (where body heat is kept away via the handle) might be a reasonable substitute… but then the shape of the glass I understand is also important, no?

Best Answer

Trying to keep your body heat from the wine is only necessary for chilled wines (whites, for the most part). For those served at room temperature (most reds), you actually want your body heat to warm the wine.

I've been to plenty of places that use 'stemless wine glasses' (about the size of a red wine glass, maybe a little larger, but no stem underneath) for reds. I've also been to places that just use mason jars.

For whites, if you're at a dinner table, it's not going to matter as much, as you can put your glass down. The problem comes when you're standing around with your glass. You can get around the problems by making sure that the wine is well chilled, and don't serve as much per glass (so they don't hold it so long that it warms up). Handled glasses can help, but I wouldn't go for a large beer mug like Cos recommended -- I'd use a smaller mug for coffee or tea.

One exception would be your bubbly wines. You want something tall and narrow for those.

None of these have the characteristic wine glass shape, with the smaller opening at the top, which is going to help concentrate the aromas, so if you have any glasses that are shaped like that, consider using those. And you don't want to fill any glass of wine more than half full, so that you have space for the vapors to collect.

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Any white with a sufficiently high acid content. The canonical fondue wine is Fendant, which is made in the valais region out of chasselas grapes, so any chasselas (see Wikipedia for a long list of alternative names) will work well.

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The standard amount (if there is one) for a “glass” of wine

It comes from two different measurements, typical wine bottle size, and government alcohol regulations

Typical wine bottles are 750 ml, and this divides exactly into five or six servings of 150 or 125 ml (thanks peter). So many traditional wine glass serves are "exactly" 150 or 125 ml (~5 or 4 oz) depending in which country you live in

For typical government regulation, a standard drink is; a 100 ml glass of table wine, or a 330 ml can of beer, or a 30 ml glass of straight spirits. Each of these contains on average 10 g of alcohol. So many liquor licensing guidelines recommend the serving of wine by 100 ml (3.5 oz) standard drink sizes

Governments will use this to produce such amazing guidelines such as:

For women: Two standard drinks a day, and no more than ten standard drinks a week
For men: Three standard drinks a day, and no more than fifteen standard drinks a week
And for both at least two alcohol-free days every week

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Update; references from ICAP

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