Renting glasses

[jdaw1]

Ahead of the Fonseca Guimaraens vertical about ten man hours were spent in the kitchen washing glasses to remove soap residue. I am weary of doing this. (Also tip-of-the-hat to JGH and BMHR.)

Subsequently, the Big Fortified Tasting (a trade fair for fortified wines held Wed 06 Apr 2011) used ISO glasses, rented from Sensible Wine Services. The BFT had rented four thousand glasses, and the several I used were clean.

To rent five hundred ISO, delivered clean enough to use, would cost £270+VAT, including delivery. Riedels would cost about 50% more. This is surely the way forward.

[JacobH]

I can confirm the ISO glasses were entirely satisfactory, with no residual detergent problems at all. Presumably they would also be able to sort us out with some decanters, too, if that was thought a problem when we next revisit the RAF Club.

[DRT]

I am all for this idea. If we work on the basis that we need 500 (which is likely to be too many) and we have a guest, so the costs are divided by 13, it would cost just under £25 per person to have good quality clean glasses at these tastings. Given the other expenses incurred for one of these events that seems like a small price to pay.

I think I would be in favour of going for Riedels for events where we have fewer bottles but the same number of people, as we would if we went for a pre-WWII horizontal. Fewer glasses would result in the cost being similar to that of ISO's for a large tasting.

I don't think this is a solution for informal tastings at The Crusting Pipe as the cost of the glasses would be disproportionate. I think those who are not happy with the TCP glasses should just bring their own, as many already do now.

[WS1]

Hi there,

I am also very fond of the idea we rent our glasses. I tested the standard glasses in the RAF club before the 1970 tasting and considered them as just acceptable but not good. Also I would like to suggest we should factor in the age of the ports into the selcetion of the glases we want to taste. For younger ports I would not mind using the ISO glas, but for older and more fragile ports i think we should use the Riedel glasses.

Once more thank you JGH, BMHR and Julian for the big effort you put into this tasting.

regards

WS1

[jdaw1]

FYI, you are being discussed at
http://www.ThePortForum.com/viewtopic.php?t=4844

If you should wish to add anything, you are welcome to do so directly, or by replying to this email asking me to post something.

In particular, you might wish to comment on how you ensure that glasses are soap-free, and on how you ensure that stale long-stored glasses are rewashed before use.

No reply yet received.

[DRT]

Julian,

As you have made contact already could you please ask about the cut-rim glasses that were similar in shape to a Riedel Vinum but the same size as the ISO glasses? If these are separately available, and not just scattered amongst the ISO glasses as they were at the BFT, they might provide an afoardable option between the two extremes.

I would also be interested to know who makes them as they would be ideal for home use and to bring along to informal tastings. Perhaps Sensible Wines would sell us a batch in a single consignment if enough people were interested?

Derek

[jdaw1]

the glass-washing issue is becoming quite severe, since it requires two people to give up most of a day or three to give up most of an afternoon to get it sorted. I wonder if the organisers of the next big tasting should give some thought to hiring proper glasses to avoid this.

[jdaw1]

For the records, there follows a scan of the business card that I was given by Sensible Wine Services.

[RAYC]

In Jacob's port glassesthread

I think 50ml is probably under the optimal fill zone, particularly for the Riedel which is notably larger than the others. I’ve actually often thought the Riedel is a bit too large but perhaps that’s something for some future experiments.

50 ml is a tasting pour. Proper restaurants pour 4-5 glasses of wine from a 750 ml bottle; twice that for Port. I suspect that the Riedel is meant for a standard serving, which would be 75-90 ml.

I think this is an important point to bear in mind before splashing out extra on the Riedel for a large tasting (of which there are a couple coming up this autumn).

It would be good for a few people to experiment with ISO vs Riedel for 50ml pours and post feedback. Those that were at the BFT event - was it a standard ISO as available here or a better quality version? Did i read somewhere that you identified a third type of glass at BFT?

[RAYC]

Did i read somewhere that you identified a third type of glass at BFT?

As you have made contact already could you please ask about the cut-rim glasses that were similar in shape to a Riedel Vinum but the same size as the ISO glasses? If these are separately available, and not just scattered amongst the ISO glasses as they were at the BFT, they might provide an afoardable option between the two extremes.

I would also be interested to know who makes them as they would be ideal for home use and to bring along to informal tastings. Perhaps Sensible Wines would sell us a batch in a single consignment if enough people were interested?

I was not imagining things - it was a few posts up. I have sent an email to enquire

[RAYC]

Hi Rob,

Many thanks for the e-mail, not sure what other glass you mean. I only have the ISO glass and the Riedel Port is very similar to the ISO shape. I’ve given you 2 quotes below for both the Riedel and ISO.

432 (12 racks of 36) x Riedel Port @ 75p each = £324
Delivery/Collection to/from London @ £30 each way = £60
GRAND TOTAL = £384 (plus VAT)
Breakages are charged at £7.50 each

Or

432 (12 racks of 36) x ISO Tasting Glass @ £5 per dozen = £180
Delivery/Collection to/from London @ £30 each way = £60
GRAND TOTAL = £240 (plus VAT)
Breakages are charged at £1.15 each.

Hope this is OK, but please do contact me if you need any more info.

Best wishes

Mel

Accordingly, assuming one industry guest, price per person for a fully-subscribed 30-bottle tasting would be as follows:

ISO: £22.15 [(240+48)/13]
Riedel: £35.44 [(384+76.8)/13]

[AHB]

Rob,

Could you enquire whether the ISO glasses have a cut rim or a rolled rim? If I remember, this was the main difference that we found at the BFT.

[RAYC]

Rob,

Could you enquire whether the ISO glasses have a cut rim or a rolled rim? If I remember, this was the main difference that we found at the BFT.

our ISO’s are rolled rims. All our glasses are cleaned using an osmosis unit which washes them in pure water (hence there are no water marks, as they dry clear). This the high standard we have created and maintained because of the Riedel Glasses. The glasses are not polished, how you saw them on the table is how they come out of our machine. You might get the odd glass that isn’t perfect but on a whole they are ready to drink from.

So the mystery continues....

In any event, it looks like there is a straight choice between Riedels and ISOs

[jdaw1]

our ISO’s are rolled rims. All our glasses are cleaned using an osmosis unit which washes them in pure water (hence there are no water marks, as they dry clear). This the high standard we have created and maintained because of the Riedel Glasses. The glasses are not polished, how you saw them on the table is how they come out of our machine. You might get the odd glass that isn’t perfect but on a whole they are ready to drink from.

That is a fair summary of what I saw at the Big Fortified Tasting. Glasses were generally good, exceptions few.

[WS1]

Hmmm, either way; since we cannot be certain they do a proper job on all glasses we need to intoduce pre tasting checks. This is in my eyes still bearble than spending all this time cleaning/drying out glasses.

regards

WS1

[DRT]

our ISO’s are rolled rims. All our glasses are cleaned using an osmosis unit which washes them in pure water (hence there are no water marks, as they dry clear). This the high standard we have created and maintained because of the Riedel Glasses. The glasses are not polished, how you saw them on the table is how they come out of our machine. You might get the odd glass that isn’t perfect but on a whole they are ready to drink from.

That is a fair summary of what I saw at the Big Fortified Tasting. Glasses were generally good, exceptions few.

I agree, and the exceptions were so few that I think entirely acceptable. Even when we wash and dry 500 glasses at the RAFC we have a few bad ones so the SWS service is as good as doing it ourselves, with the added benefits of better glasses and almost zero effort.

Should we test this out at the Matrix tasting in October?

[jdaw1]

I agree, and the exceptions were so few that I think entirely acceptable. Even when we wash and dry 500 glasses at the RAFC we have a few bad ones so the SWS service is as good as doing it ourselves, with the added benefits of better glasses and almost zero effort.

Should we test this out at the Matrix tasting in October?

I support DRT’s reasoning and conclusions.