Champagne, one of the most iconic wines, deserves a glass of matching style and sophistication. Sparkling wine glasses have a few different shapes, each specially designed for use on certain occasions. The type of glass will not only make your bubbly drink look fantastic, but Champagne will also taste different depending on what type of glass you drink it from.
Whether celebrating with others, pairing with a particular meal, or enjoying this frothy drink on its own, let’s compare these different Champagne glasses and how they can affect the taste of wine.
Classic Champagne Flute
The iconic, slender, and tall flutes are the most popular choice. These flutes help keep the Champagne as bubbly as when you first open the bottle. That is because the narrow shape and small opening limit the ability for carbon dioxide in the sparkling wine to escape, thereby preserving the wine’s effervescence (bubbles).
Since the opening is very small in order to maintain the bubbles, you won’t be able to get as many aromatics, since they will also be trapped in the bowl of the glass. The flavors will be more dry and crisp, which might be your preference. Another advantage is that by holding the glass by its stem, you can keep the wine cold and refreshing for longer.
Recommendations:
The Ultima Platinum Modern Champagne Flutes with hand-painted platinum rim and striking silhouette is a streamlined contemporary flute design that will add chic refinement to a dining table. It’s sleek and sparkling like Champagne and would pair well with any table setting.
Stölze Grand Cuvee Champagne Flutes will give you the classic look at a great price, which is ideal for large get-togethers. Most importantly, they are sturdy and dishwasher safe.
Stemless Flutes
These glasses are meant to be used for parties. Stemless glasses were introduced in the late 1990s, and their casual shape made wine drinking more appealing to a broader audience. Even without the stem, the flutes have a recognizable Champagne glass shape. Normally sparkling wine is consumed during a celebration. Bubbles are key to adding a fun and festive feeling, so the tall and slender body of the glass allows them to take center stage.
The easy shape of the glass allows for a firmer grip during parties, but without a stem, the Champagne will begin to warm in your hand if held too long.
Recommendations:
Mardi Gras and Bella Festiva flutes are beautifully elegant with their intricate patterns. They are perfect for casually sophisticated gatherings. These stemless flutes are sold in sets of six, ready to purchase and use for large parties.
Better yet, get the Champagne Party Bundle featuring our Mardi Gras collection and an acrylic, ice-less chiller to keep the bottle chilled throughout the night.
Vintage Coupe
Vintage style Coupes are for Champagne drinkers who are interested in the wine’s flavor and full body, not so much the bubbles. Coupes bring out the nutty, toasty, and apple aromas of the Champagne. The larger surface area allows carbon dioxide to escape, so the bubbles will dissipate quickly and you will lose a little of the crispness of the Champagne.
For a party with sparkling wine based cocktails, a saucer-like glass is the perfect choice.
Speaking of parties, if you ever throw a Great Gatsby-themed event, you must serve Champagne in a coupe glass to recreate the Roaring ’20s feel.
Recommendations:
Like all great fashion ideas, vintage becomes the ‘new’ now. IWA Wine’s Schott Zweisel Champagne Coupe sells as a set of six glasses.
If you want to bring a little something from the past to the present, these beautiful modern Noir Coupe Glasses are amazing. They can be a blaze of bronze, silver, or gold on the inside. With the matte black exterior finish, it’s a dramatic coupe glass for your table setting.
Another benefit of these glasses is that they can be stacked together to create a champagne tower for a fun moment at any wedding, birthday, or celebration. The number of glasses needed for a champagne tower: 3-tier (14 glasses), 4-tier (30 glasses), 5-tier (55 glasses), 6-tier (91 glasses).
Glasses to Appreciate, Cherish, and Savor the Champagne (Sommelier’s Champagne Glasses)
To truly appreciate Champagne, regular flutes may not be the best choice. What you need is a glass with a little larger bowl to capture the rich bouquet and aromas of the Champagne while still keeping the bubbles present, in more of a tulip shape.
With a moderately narrow body, these glasses still allow for a bubbly, crisp wine.With the larger opening, CO2 will be less concentrated and therefore allows your nose to smell those wonderful aromas of fruit, nuttiness and toast!
Recommendations:
The Riedel Sommeliers Vintage Champagne Glasses are perfect for that.
They are larger than typical glasses, so you won’t need to fill them to the brim like a classic flute. This will allow Champagne’s rich aroma to embrace your senses. The sommelier’s flute style is an excellent option for drinking very dry Champagnes, keeping the bubbles present but never overpowering.
Another excellent option that a sommelier would choose is the Italesse Champagne Flute. The width of the bowl is specially designed to capture aromas. It’s the ideal shape for a sparkling wine glass with both elegance and function.
These are the glasses that you would see when drinking Champagne at the best Michelin-starred restaurants in the world. They are extraordinarily lightweight, thin, mouth-blown, and handcrafted stemware. There’s simply no other way to appreciate and savor the taste of your Champagne than by drinking them from this style of stemware.
About the Author: Mark Fang is a certified Sommelier and has 10+ years of wine industry experience. He founded the #1 Wine Event in NYC and has started his wine blog (WineO Mark, www.wineomark.com) to find his readers the best wine deals!