ELEGANT: The Swan decanter brings out the best in your wine
By THEUNIS BATES | Time Magazine | Wednesday, May. 07, 2008
The Riedel family has never stamped its name on a single bottle of wine. But over the past 50 years, this Austrian clan of master glassmakers has done more to enhance the oenophile`s pleasure than almost any winemaking dynasty. The Riedel revolution began in the 1960s, when the firm created the world`s first line of wine glasses shaped specifically for different grape verieties. Now Riedel has designed a new set of leadcrystal decanters inspired by the bird life of Murano, the Venetian island famed for ist glassware. The three decanters boast an avian grace: the Swan`s swooping body, the Flamingo`s long slender neck and the Paloma`s dove-like curves. And as with any Riedel product, they are masterpieces of function as well as form. Exposing wine to oxygen for a few hours before pouring can improve its taste (thanks to a chemical reaction known as aeration), so each of the $490 decanters has been shaped to maximize a wine`s contact with the air as you empty the bottle into it.
Although the decanters might look unwieldy – the Swan and Flamingo stand two feet (0.6m) tall – they are perfectly balanced to prevent spillage. So you won`t lose a drop when you`re filling your dinner guest`s glasses.
(By Theunis Bates – Time Magazine)
