THE FLUTE is dead… Long live the flute! You could say the same about the coupe… Wine glasses, that is, stemware for sparkling wine specifically. Is there a right and wrong one to serve bubbles in? Well, yes and no. In part it depends on the occasion, e.g. chilling, doing casual, versus fine-dining or serious scrutiny of a wine with a view to passing judgement. The flute isn't going away anytime soon, however there's been an evolution of sorts.
In South Africa, who better to broach the subject with than the chairman of the Cap Classique Producers Association, Pieter Ferreira, who for many years was the cellarmaster at leading bubbly producer Graham Beck in Robertson, and who also has his own brand, based in Franschhoek. And from SA, what better wines to include in a tasting to compare glasses than multiple award winners at the annual Cap Classique Challenge, i.e. Domaine des Dieux of the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge with their Claudia Brut, Newstead of Plettenberg Bay with Doug and Sue Lund's Brut Blanc de Blancs, and Simonsig of Koelenhof-Stellenbosch with the Malan family's Cuvée Royale Blanc de Blancs – Des Dieux winning in 2022, 2018 and 2014 with vintages 2016, 2012 and 2009 respectively, Newstead taking top honours in 2024 and 2020 with vintages 2017 and 2015, whereas Simonsig was the overall champ in 2017 with their 2012 vintage and in 2012 with their 2007. Plus, to complete the line-up: the Brut Reserve from one of the specialist bubbly cellars in Franschhoek, Colmant Cap Classique & Champagne.
In what Ferreira/Graham Beck presents as ‘A Glass Act', by appointment, each of the sparklers is poured into a variety of glasses, different shapes and different brands to make their point, i.e. that sparkling wine is best experienced from certain types of glasses more than others. This time there was only one particular wine in each flight, ±110ml per glass, chilled to around 8°C, with the focus on what influence the stemware has on the nose and palate of each wine.
One of the glasses used on this occasion was of the universal kind, stemware designed to be okay for drinking all sorts of wine from. Each bubbly in the line-up tasted fine out of it, however not as good as the variations on a ‘traditional' flute. By ‘traditional' we're talking long, tall, slim, with pretty much the same width from top to bottom, some curving slightly inwards or outwards at the lip – a shape that tends to accentuate the freshness of a wine, and also does a really good job of showing off the bubbles as they rise up the length of the glass, but isn't great when it comes to what the wine smells like.
Another in Ferreira's selection was a coupe with deeper sides to it compared with the flatter version popular way back when until the flute took precedence – the coupe having a very wide diameter at the top/mouth relative to any of the other glasses, the sparkling effervescence from the less-shallow version less ‘in your face' but the aroma/bouquet still not captured and delivered as well as some of the other stemware. (Although there's no doubt that the coupe is the best glass for building Champagne towers or pyramids with).
The consensus by the end of the tasting was that, generally speaking, the stemware most recommended for experiencing sparkling wine at its best are glasses that have some length but with a bowl that's wider than the traditional flute, somewhat tulip-shaped, tapered at the top to concentrate or amplify what you experience on the nose. And the brands on people's lips: Riedel, Lehmann, Gabriel-Glas, Zalto, Nude… R180 to R1800 per glass.
