Local Wine Makers Appalled by Drinkers' Wine Glasses

Friends of local glass artist Allysa Thompson brought her animal-themed glasses to the zoo.

At a Woodland Park Zoo fund-raiser last Friday, wine glasses were available for a $5 rental fee, but the vast majority of attendees arrived armed with their own receptacles. Tim Narby, owner of Seattle's Nota Bene Cellars--one of more than two dozen wineries offering tastings--was stunned by the range of glasses thrust beneath his bottles.

"I was appalled," Narby says. "I saw terrible things. I saw plastic cups. I saw jam jars. I saw wee little shot glasses."

Lest Narby be accused of stemware snobbery, he points out a glass designed to showcase wine costs less than the zoo event's $25 admission price.

"You can get a damn good glass for $25," he says. "Absolutely the best. Ten dollars is fine."

While oenophiles like to debate materials, shapes, and stem size, everyone agrees a glass should have a bowl of sufficient girth for swirling. "You want plenty of room for the aromas to build," Narby says. "Most of the wine experience is the nose."

A traditional 30-ounce red wine glass is harder to stick in a purse than the novelty glasses used by many drinkers at the zoo, but a few tasting participants managed to show up with proper stemware: Narby saw Spiegelau and Riedel glasses.

"I'm a proponent of positive reinforcement," says Narby, who didn't criticize when tasters presented juice glasses for pouring. "People who had really nice glasses, I told them so very loudly."

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