葡萄美酒Zalto杯There’s a lot of empty noise about vessels

Most of the year I write about what to serve and drink but during this festive season I’d like to focus on what to serve and drink wine from.

去年大多半时间，我的专栏写的是吃喝，现在我想专门谈谈吃喝所用的酒杯。

I’ve noticed that wine professionals are much more casual in their approach to entertaining with wine than those who know less about the subject. It is a widespread belief – fostered by those selling wine glasses – that it is essential to have a new glass for each wine, preferably one tailor-made for the precise sort of wine served in it, but this is far from professional wine practice.

我注意到葡萄酒专业人士用酒款待客人的方式比那些对此知之甚少者要随意得多。一个普遍的看法——葡萄酒具销售商所竭力宣扬的——每种葡萄酒得备新酒具，这非常重要，最好是用特制酒具来喝专门准备的葡萄酒，但这与葡萄酒行业的通行做法相去甚远。

In fact, at trade tastings we tend to clasp one increasingly besmirched glass throughout an entire tasting, first using it for dry whites, then pinks, then reds and finally sweet wines. We might – just might – go in search of a new glass for a sweet white if we have been tasting reds, but that is really only for cosmetic purposes so that we can judge the colour accurately. In practice, the effect of traces of the previous wine are so effectively overpowered by the impact of its replacement that it really doesn’t matter if a glass has held more than one wine.

事实上，在交易性品酒会上，我们往往至始至终只拿一只酒杯来回品酒，首先用它品干白，之后是桃红葡萄酒，最后是甜葡萄酒，于是酒杯不断地沾染所品过的葡萄酒。我们若是一直在品红葡萄酒，喝甜白葡萄酒时我们可能——只是可能——会去另找一只酒杯，但那真的只是哄人的把戏，只为了能准确辨别颜色而已。实际情况是，原先的酒渍已完全被新倒的酒遮盖，所以酒杯是否倒过其它酒真的无关紧要。

Indeed, for many sensitive tasters, the real potential distraction from the characteristics of the wine being tasted is the possibility of traces of washing-up liquid or of heavily chlorinated water left in a supposedly “clean” glass. So much so that it is common practice, especially in Italy for some reason, to “wine” the glass by pouring a small initial sample into the tasting glass before use and then carefully tilting and turning the glass so that every square inch of its interior has been rinsed by the favoured liquid.

事实上，对于很多敏感的品酒客来说，对正在品味的酒的特性能造成真正潜在干扰的可能是留有洗涤液的残渍，或者可能是自认为洗干净的酒杯上残留的过度氯化的自来水。正因为如此，如今通行的做法（尤其在意大利）是用葡萄酒来“洗”酒杯：酒杯使用前，先倒一点最先要品的样酒至杯中，然后再慢慢倾斜转动酒杯，使杯身内壁的每寸地方被葡萄酒充分浸润。

When entertaining at home, I certainly don’t insist on this palaver but I do tend to give guests just two wine glasses for most of the meal, and use the same ones brutally for dry whites, then for reds. The size and shape of those two glasses depends more on their being obviously different from each other rather than being the perfect glass for the wines I intend to serve. This is because I usually serve two different wines with each course since I am incorrigibly curious about wine and I always learn from comparisons. (If I had more glasses and a bigger table, I might routinely inflict three wines at a time on my guests.) Because of this multiple choice business, by the cheese course it can get very confusing indeed if all the glasses are identical.

在家款待客人时，我当然不会一个劲地叨个没完，但用餐期间，我往往会给客人两个酒杯，然后不管三七二十一，就让他们用一只酒杯喝各种干白，另一只酒杯喝各种干红。两个酒杯的大小与形状更多的是一目了然地可以区分，而不是我上啥酒就非得配啥酒杯。这是因为我上每道菜时，通常会上两种不同的葡萄酒，原因嘛，就在于我本人对葡萄酒好奇成瘾，总能从比照中有所裨益。（我若是有更多酒杯、更大的餐桌，可能会习惯性地一次给客人喝三种葡萄酒。）由于要达到一石多鸟的目的，所以待到上奶酪时，若是所有的酒杯完全一样，定会乱得一塌糊涂。

I regularly attend professional or hardened amateur wine dinners and tastings at which far more different wines are served than my usual pair of whites followed by two pairs of reds. It is not uncommon, in my experience, to sit down to a dozen different glasses at each place.

我定期会参加专业或者业余痴迷分子的葡萄酒会与品酒会，这些场合不象我自己通常上两组白葡萄酒后再上两组红葡萄酒，会有许许多多种不同的葡萄酒。在我的经历中，在一个场合坐下来面对10多种不同的葡萄酒是常有的事。

Well-practised establishments, especially in Asia, use small coloured stickers on the base of the glasses matching those on the list of wines to prevent tasters from confusing their Pétrus with their Pin. I’m sure washable felt-tip pens could be used to the same effect, and many tasting organisers have special large sheets of white paper printed with numbers, or the names of all the wines – inside circles for each glass – with the same result.

经验老到的组织方，尤其在亚洲，会在酒瓶底部贴上彩色小标签，与提供的酒单一一对应，避免品酒者把柏图斯（Pétrus，一种名贵红酒）与里鹏(le Pin)搞混。我敢肯定用可拆洗签字笔写也能表达同样意思。许多品酒会组织者准备了超大号白纸，上面印着所有酒的编号或者名字——数字用圆圈圈起来以对应酒杯——效果一样。

This was the approach adopted at the recent International Riesling Symposium at the Schloss Reinhartshausen Hotel in the Rheingau, near Frankfurt where, four times over, a skilful young team needed just half an hour to pour 22 delicate, chilled Rieslings for each of more than 200 tasters.

在法兰克福附近莱茵高地区(the Rheingau)的Schloss Reinhartshausen Hotel酒店举行的国际雷司令葡萄酒研讨会(International Riesling Symposium)就采用了以上做法：一组业务娴熟的年轻人只花了半个小时就分四次给200多位品酒客斟了22种美味、冰爽的雷司令酒。

As you will gather, I am not too dogmatic about precise glass shapes. The famous Austrian wine glass manufacturer Georg Riedel has demonstrated time and again that having the right glass for the right wine can increase one’s enjoyment of it but the practicalities of having a set of the perfect glasses for each wine type defeat me and my cupboard space.

可见，我对酒杯形状精准与否不是太过固执。奥地利著名的葡萄酒杯制造商格奥尔格•力多(Georg Riedel)已反复证明用好杯盛好酒会增加品酒的愉悦感，但在实际生活中，准备一套好酒杯来分门别类地喝酒我实在勉为其难，再说我的碗橱也容不下如此多的酒杯。

The main thing is to have clear glass that is as thin as possible with a bowl on a stem that goes in towards the rim so that you can swirl to release aroma without losing either wine or vapour. The most useful size of bowl is one that would contain about a third to a half of a bottle if filled to the rim but we winos like to fill glasses only about one-third full so as to leave lots of space for the all-important swirling and resultant aromas.

重要的是酒杯要透亮，杯壁得尽可能薄，杯脚上方的杯身得向杯边内切，这样的话匀摇酒杯时，酒香能缓释出来，但又不至于把酒洒出或者散味。杯身最合适的大小，就是倒满时刚好能盛三分之一到半瓶酒，但我们这些葡萄酒痴迷者喜欢只倒三分之一杯，为的是能留出足够的酒杯空间以做最重要的匀晃酒动作，然后再闻沁出的阵阵酒香。

Riedel no longer has the wine glass market to himself and an increasing proportion of the newer wine glasses have an angle in them rather than being gently bulbous – presumably to maximise the surface area of an ideal serving.

力多如今不再独占整个葡萄酒杯市场，越来越多新式酒杯在杯身拐个角，而不是优雅的球弧形——目的可能是给心仪的葡萄酒以最大的接触面积。

The glasses that have most impressed me recently, from Zalto, conform to this rather Scandinavian shape and are the thinnest and most delicate I have come across, yet seem springy and almost elastic in the hand. The Zaltos were originally Venetian but the glasses are made in northern Austria and over the border in the Czech Republic. Best of all, the manufacturers say they are best washed in a regular dishwasher. At £26 for one of the “Universal” model from Around Wine in London W1, they are not cheap but they are cheaper than many of Riedel’s top models and would give any serious wine lover a real thrill over the closeness of contact they offer.

最近给我最深印象的葡萄酒杯是由Zalto生产的，它的外形颇具斯堪的纳维亚风格，是我见过最薄、也是最精致的酒杯，然而拿在手中很轻盈无比，几乎有种灵动的感觉。Zalto家族原先是威尼斯人，但酒杯在奥地利北部靠近捷克共和国(Czech Republic)的边境地区生产。最绝的是，制造商说酒杯最好在常用的洗碗机中清洗。在伦敦W1的Around Wine店，名为“Universal”的一款酒杯售价高达26英镑，这些酒杯的确不便宜，但比力多的许多顶级款式来得便宜，任何葡萄酒的痴心拥趸若能握此杯于手中，定会有美不胜收的享受。

When it comes to decanters, Riedel now makes a particularly stylish series but I tend to scour antique and junk shops for older ones. One modern shape I find very useful for aerating really tight, taut young wines is made by Spiegelau, and called the “Graal”. It is shaped like a giant Paris goblet, big enough to hold two bottles of wine and to offer a vast surface area when filled with one. It stands on a stem and has a little spout for neat pouring.

说到酒壶，力多如今生产特别时尚的系列产品，但本人还是喜欢到古玩店及旧货店去淘老款式。让密封良好的新酿葡萄酒充分接触空气，我觉得德国诗杯客乐(Spiegelau)生产的一款名为“Graal”的现代款酒杯非常合适，它的形似一只巨大的巴黎高脚杯，容量大得可以盛下二瓶葡萄酒，倒一瓶酒时，它可以提供超大的接触面积。它有杯把支撑，一个小壶嘴可以从从容容地倒酒。

The one problem with traditional decanters with narrow necks is cleaning them – especially when they are left with red wine stains. I fill them with a warm solution of denture-cleaning powder. Unromantic but delightfully effective.

传统酒壶的问题是杯颈太窄，不太好清洗——尤其是残留有红葡萄酒渍。我的方法则是用洁牙粉的热溶液清洗，无甚新意，但特别管用。

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Details

更多详情请浏览以下网址：

www.aroundwine.co.uk

www.aroundwine.co.uk

www.riedel.com

www.riedel.com

www.zaltoglas.at

www.zaltoglas.at

For festive picks and tasting notes, see www.jancisrobinson.com

欲读假日拾趣精选以及品酒心得，请浏览网址： www.jancisrobinson.com