COMMENT
I have a problem with wineglasses.
Wine is a wonderful beverage much loved by the ancients who happily quaffed it from gourds, rough pottery cups, pig skins, silver chalices and all sorts of sensible containers. Sometimes, even, straight from the barrel.
Somewhere along the evolutionary line humans forgot that enjoying the taste
and fragrance of wine is more important than what it is served in. Today it is fashionable to use the most inappropriate glassware.
We drink from a host of different kinds of glass, which is fine, except for the fact that the wineglass maker is either a mad comedian or a sadist. The glasses are very rarely stable. The champagne glass has recently progressed from having a wide shallow top and a hole down the middle, which was impossible to clean, to the new-age champagne flute. This is a real lulu. Tall and skinny, the slightest shift of a dinner napkin will send it spinning.
The main problem is the length of the stems and the tiny bases. And there seems to be intense competition between dinner hostesses to provide the most challenging. Champagne glasses are the worst, but even red wine is served in tall glasses.
Presenting myself at the table at a dinner party after one or two pre-dinner drinks takes all my fortitude. Once seated, the glass of wine arrives in a 300mm high recipe for total disaster. You reach for the salt and the unstable object falls over and spreads the contents all over the beautiful damask table cloth. At this stage the hostess makes a twisted attempt to smile and says: "Don't worry, you can get red wine out easily these days." This is followed by her rapid exit to the kitchen, from which, if you listen carefully, you can hear muffled sobs or the sounds of the cat being kicked.
I wish I had the courage to take my own stubby glass to dinner parties, into which I could transfer the contents of my hostess' glass, before tragedy struck. But alas, it is probably too late, because I don't seem to get invited to dinner these days. Perhaps I have a personal problem.
* Neville Rykers is a Herald reader from Te Atatu.
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