Seemingly spun from some crystalline gossamer, the top-of-the-range Gabriel is of a helium lightness, the elegantly waisted, paper-thin bowl floating on a match-thin stem. But the bowl plumply bottoms out: for all its delicacy it looks robustly functional, and despite weighing little more than a cobweb it has an artisanal heft in the hand. This is a very, very nice glass, developed by the Swiss wine writer René Gabriel with the claim that it works for all wines, “red, white, sparkling and dessert”. It certainly worked on the reds, the Burgundy rising out of the glass with a blast of cherry and earth, and similarly it only added brightness and charm to the Rioja, whose palate came over with a wash of juice. It’s almost too much of a precision instrument for the Albariño, which lost its generosity – it’s great if you like your Atlantic whites to be arrow-sharp, but we missed the fruity top notes. The white Bordeaux showed far better, that waisted bowl channelling a creamy opulence to the very back of the palate.
Verdict: A gorgeous artefact with serious practical purpose, lovely to hold and to use.
Read the full article from Club Oenologique, here.
