Full-blown glass master

Red wine - if you are drinking it, you are probably drinking it the wrong way.

That is the startling message from Georg Riedel, head of Riedel Glas Austria, the 10th generation of his family involved with the eponymous high-end lead crystal wine glass company.

The impeccable and exacting Austrian is too polite to say we Australians have been making a giant mistake. Rather, he says, we "may have missed something" because we have not paid "crucial attention to crucial details of wine service".

"Red wines have been consumed too warm," Riedel says. "You are losing out on the mouth feel, the freshness of the wine, if you serve it at room temperatures."

Georg Riedel, a 10th generation glassmaker and chief executive of Riedel Glassworks from Austria.

For Riedel, the man and the company, there is wine, there is physics, there is emotion and all are connected. He is convinced that wine looks better, smells better, tastes better, in a Riedel wine glass.

"You cannot improve the quality of the wine, that would be a miracle. But we can definitely lift the emotions," he says.

Riedel says physics determines the aroma patterns and flavour profile of wine. "The three elements - the bowl design, the size and shape, the rim diameter - have an impact on the perception of wine." And Riedel reps run global tastings for 55,000 guests each year to prove it.

The vogue for outsized wine glasses has a practical basis. "The size is not there to maximise the quantity of wine that you fill in there. You give wine room to exhale and breath and to show the qualities of the aroma. This is only possible in the way that the glass tapers in on top. Only when you taper in on top do you create in the glass an accumulation of molecules. The accumulation of molecules is exactly what determines a scent.

"Glasses which are conically shaped, cubicly shaped or open on top, you hardly get any perfume - and aroma in wine is a very important detail."

The first Riedel in the trade of luxury glass goods was Johann Christoph Riedel, born in 1678 in Bohemia. Georg Riedel was born in Innsbruck in 1949 (a wonderful vintage year for Bordeaux), took up running aged 30 and has run 10 marathons since.

He took charge of the business from his father, Claus Josef Riedel (1925-2004), who in 1973 effected a change in stemware from traditional-cut glass to unadorned, thin blown, long-stemmed wine glasses, following the "form follows function" principle of the Bauhaus design movement.

Riedel's trip here coincides with an anniversary and a launch. It is the 40-year anniversary of the Sommeliers Collection, which revolutionised wine glasses when in 1973 varietal specific glasses were introduced.

Four decades on and Riedel has created a new range of glassware, Sommeliers Black Series Collectors Edition.

"Wine carries a message, without a doubt. It is just how you deliver the message," he says.

"We believe that wine is highly emotional, we don't drink wine to quench our thirst, we drink wine because we want to have friends, family and people we like getting close to us. That is the reason why we clink our glass of wine. Wine brings people together without doubt."

Riedel products don't come cheap. Each of the glasses in the Sommeliers Collection (each piece is lead crystal, mouth blown) sells for $199.95.

Each glass is a different shape designed specifically for different varietals. The success of the Sommeliers Collection means that the Museum of Modern Art in New York has Riedel in its collection.

After wine, fresh beverage frontiers beckon. Riedel has designs on tea, coffee, even bottled water and more.

"We are also now talking to people who make the most well-known beverage in the world - Coca-Cola," he says.

A panel of experts is in the process of drinking the beverage using different shaped glasses to identify optimal shapes. "To experience what brings out the character," as Riedel puts it.

The company has one factory in Austria and three in Bavaria and has capacity to make 55 million pieces for its different brands each year, both lead crystal and non-lead crystal, mouth-blown and machine-made. "We produce glasses handmade as well as machine made," Riedel says. "Glasses can be blown, can be pressed; as we want to produce blown glasses which definitely are closed on the top, you have to blow them."

Such reputation for quality comes only with demanding perfection, in evidence when Weekend A Plus visits the Riedel showroom in Sydney.

"Don't pour a shiraz please!" Riedel tells his Australian sales manager, who is setting up for the photograph. "And the reason is very simple, the glasses are not shiraz glasses." He has refined varietal specific glasses, an idea pioneered by his father.

"I just wanted to make sure Mark doesn't overpour the glass. The glass is so large that you could pour a bottle and something in there. You want to pour 100ml to 125ml max into this large glass. It is all about the complexity of the aroma. if you fill the glass up to the brim, there's not more aromas.

Georg's son Maximilian, the 11th generation, born in 1977 and who started in the family business aged 12, has already won awards for his stemless wine glasses. The line of succession is assured and the company's future seems assured. "My father was the pioneer. He was the first in history to talk about wine-friendly glasses," says Riedel. "In this niche we have an outstanding name and the name was created simply by the endorsement of our consumers and the endorsements of wine makers and writers. When people talk about wine glasses, Riedel is part of this conversation."

Source: The Australian, 31 August 2013