No More Fish Bowl-Sized Wine Glasses

I guess I am not a so-called "wine snob" and have no particular bent when it comes to the type of glassware that my wine is poured into. Hell, I am someone who used to enjoy MD 20/20 and Boone's Farm right out of the bottle with my high school chums. More recently I am a pragmatist and do not fancy fish-bowl sized wine glasses, which was what my wine was served in when dining at a pretty good Italian restaurant in Chicago on Sunday.

The primary reason I do not fancy the huge wine glasses is the initial cost associated with the glass itself. They do cost more and they are easier to break, especially if select a very nice brand. The other problem I have is that people percieve value based on how tall something is and not how horizontal it is. For example, if you give someone a 8-ounce beverage portion in a tall slender glass and then give them an 8-ounce portion in a rocks glass, the customer is going to percieve that they are getting less of a pour in the shorter glass even though the amount poured is the same.

And THAT is why restaurants have had to purchase a small carafe to accompany every glass of wine ordered so that the customer will see that they did get what they paid for when ordering and can then "serve themselves" and pour the wine they ordered into their own glass to perceive "value." This is wasteful because another purchase has had to be made to convince customers they are not getting screwed when their gigantic wine glass comes to the table with what appears to be a coating of wine at the bottom. Eegads!

So, I am going to go out on a limb today and suggest that the only people who fancy huge wine glasses are precocious wine snobs who are hung up on "size matters" and get turned on by tall, erect, hard glassware and get to order them for wine service. I do not think it matters to the average customer! That is why I love drinking a glass of wine in pubs in the UK as each glass has a standardized line that is used to measure out how much wine is to be poured so that customers know they are not getting "short poured."

So for me and my money, and that of the typical customer, stop ordering the fish-bowl size wine glass for wine service. They are expensive and twice as much so when ordering the sidekick carafe. Order a standard glass that can be poured almost to the rim and let me believe I am getting value for my wine dollar.

What do you think?!