| More likely than not, the name Riedel will just be | | | | varying sensitivities to different types of taste. |
| vaguely familiar to you. At best, you may have | | | | In 1973, the company launched the innovative |
| heard that it's a brand of wine glass but that's | | | | Sommelier glass series which was comprised of |
| about the extent of your familiarity with the | | | | 10 sizes. The design concept of these glasses |
| brand. | | | | was trailblazing and would in fact become the |
| Truth of the matter is, the Riedel brand of glass | | | | basis for future stemware design. The Sommelier |
| and crystal stemware has done more not just for | | | | glasses were considered to be not just merely |
| the glass stemware industry but more so, for the | | | | wine glasses but objects of technical precision. |
| wine industry as a whole. | | | | That said, there are those in the scientific |
| Unbeknown to many, a 9th generation Riedel | | | | community who remain skeptic about the science |
| invented the design of the modern wine glass as | | | | behind the Riedel glasses. There are those in the |
| we know it now. It was in the 1950's when | | | | scientific community who don't believe in the |
| Professor Claus Riedel proposed the idea that the | | | | notion that wine glasses can make a marked |
| shape of the glassware can alter a wine's taste | | | | difference in the taste of the wine. They say that |
| and aroma/bouquet. On this theory, Riedel | | | | it is useless to influence the direction of the flow |
| changed the design of the stemware from its | | | | of the wine on the tongue since there is no such |
| prevalent colored, cut-glass design then to a plain, | | | | thing as a tongue map. |
| thin hand-blown, long-stemmed wine glass. The | | | | That said, there are many oenophiles anyway |
| rationale for the differing sizes and rim and bowl | | | | who believe in the technical basis of the Riedel |
| designs of Riedel's glasses is so that they | | | | glasses. |
| influence the direction of the flow of the wine on | | | | More importantly, the pioneering efforts of Claus |
| the tongue and in the mouth. Riedel believes in the | | | | Riedel in wine glass design inspired a massive |
| existence of a so-called tongue map which | | | | resurgence in interest in wines to a degree that |
| purports that different parts of the tongue have | | | | no winemaker has matched even today. |