The Glass of Wine

The Science, Technology, and Art of Glassware for Transporting and Enjoying Wine

James F. Shackelford, Penelope L. Shackelford

• Publisher: Wiley-American Ceramic Society
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781119223436
• eBook ISBN: 9781119223450
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Materials Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The first book to focus on the role of glass as a material of critical importance to the wine industry

For centuries glass has been the material of choice for storing, shipping, and sipping wine. How did that come to pass, and why? To what extent have glassmaking and wine making co-evolved over the centuries? The first book to focus on the role of glass as a material of critical importance to the wine industry, The Glass of Wine answers these and other fascinating questions.

The authors deftly interweave compelling historical, technical, and esthetic narratives in their exploration of glass as the vessel of choice for holding, storing, and consuming wine. They discuss the traditions informing the shapes and sizes of wine bottles and wine glasses, and they demystify the selection of the "right glass" for red versus white varietals, as well as sparkling and dessert wines. In addition, they review the technology of modern glassmaking and consider the various roles glass plays in wineries—especially in the enologist's laboratory. And they consider the increasing use of aluminum and polymer containers and its potential impact on the central role of glass as the essential material for wine appreciation.

• The first book focusing on the role of glass and its central importance to the wine industry
• Written by a glass scientist at UC Davis, home of the premier viticulture and enology program in North America
• Interlards discussions of the multi-billion-dollar glass and wine industries with valuable technical insights for scientists, engineers, and wine enthusiasts alike
• Illustrates the wide spectrum of bottles, carafes, decanters, and drinking glasses with an abundance of exquisite full-color photos

Both an authoritative guide and a compelling read, The Glass of Wine tells the story of the centuries-old marriage between an endlessly fascinating material and a celebrated beverage. It is sure to have enormous appeal among ceramic and glass professionals, wine makers, and oenophiles of all backgrounds.

Chapter 1
The Perfect Material – for Wine

“Fill ev'ry glass, for wine inspires us,

And fires us

With courage, love and joy.”

John Gay 1685 – 1732

The Beggar's Opera [1728], act II, sc. I, air 19

Glass is simultaneously one of the most ancient human-made materials and one of today's most sophisticated high-tech products. While born of some of the most common elements of the earth, glass with its transparent and poetic qualities has become central to the appreciation of wine. The histories of this beverage and the material that contains it are intimately intertwined. Over the centuries, improvements in winemaking have emerged, as glass vessels were developed to reveal the liquid within.

Today, after the wine is produced and then aged, generally in wooden barrels or stainless steel tanks, it is transferred to glass bottles for secure storage (and further aging) and transported to the consumer. The bottles are thus utilitarian but also aesthetic, serving as primary marketing tools. Their shape can signal the type of wine, and their appearance can be a contributing factor in the consumer's purchase. Once in our home, we pour the wine from bottle to drinking glass to enjoy in its own right or with food. After leaving the barrel or tank, most wine sees only a glass surface until its journey ends on our lips (Figure 1.1). The great Dutch painter Vermeer immortalized this final step in a seventeenth century painting (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.1 Glass is the essential material when wine tasting, in this case at the Wine Resort Leda d'Ittiri on the island of Sardinia. (Reproduced with kind permission of Annamaria Delitala, Wine Resort Leda d'Ittiri.)

Figure 1.2 The Glass of Wine by Johannes Vermeer c. 1658–1660 (Reproduced with kind permission of Staatliche Museen Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin/Art Resource Inc.)

In North America, 40 billion glass containers are produced for beverages per year representing 15% of the general beverage market. For many beverages, plastic, aluminum, and cardboard containers are popular alternatives to glass. On the other hand, nearly 100% of the wine market continues to use glass containers (Figure 1.3). An additional benefit of these glass bottles is the ease with which they can be recycled.

Figure 1.3 Bottles are densely stacked while their wine ages at the Château de Beaucastel Winery in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region of France. (Reproduced with kind permission of Château de Beaucastel.)

Glass, however, is not without limitations. It is an inherently brittle material and more dense than plastic containers. Modestly careful handling can prevent bottle breakage, but reducing the weight of individual bottles, largely through reduced wall thickness, is an important consideration to an increasingly energy conscious industry. The cost of transporting thousands of cases of wine is nontrivial even for relatively small wineries.

This book emerges from our research involving numerous wine tours and tastings as well as from our home in Davis, California, where the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis has played a central role in the history of winemaking in California and especially the renaissance of the past 50 years, as California vintages have become peers of some of the world's great wines. The Department is, in fact, the only one within the University of California mandated by the State Legislature (in 1880 when there was but one UC campus in Berkeley). The Legislature realized even then that California had the potential to become one of the world's great producers of wine grapes and wine. The Department was formally established on the Davis campus in 1935 following the end of Prohibition. This establishment was typical of the Berkeley–Davis relationship. Judge Peter J. Shields who was also a prominent farmer in Northern California had drafted legislation early in the twentieth century to establish an agricultural college modeled after the Pennsylvania State College of his day. The large parcel of land appropriate for this college was located about one hour to the east near a convenient train station in the small town of Davis. The location was originally named the University Farm. These train trips out to Davis were regular journeys for students from the College of Agriculture at Berkeley. By 1960, over 3000 students were now doing their agricultural studies full time on the Davis campus. In that year, the Master Plan of Higher Education, the brainchild of the visionary President of the University of California Clark Kerr, established Davis and several other sites around the state as autonomous campuses.

Growth was rapid, and, by the time the authors arrived in 1973, as James assumed an assistant professorship in the Department of Mechanical Engineering teaching and doing research in the field of materials science and engineering, the campus had grown to over 15,000 students. His material of choice for academic research was generally glass, an interest that went back to an introduction to this material as an undergraduate in the highly specialized field of Ceramic Engineering at the University of Washington. A lecture there by an engineer from Corning Glass was transformative, with the slides showing technologically important materials that were stunningly beautiful (a triumph of industrial photography!). After a senior thesis studying the crystallization of a sodium silicate glass, he was on to UC Berkeley in 1967 to do a Ph.D. thesis on gas solubility in high-purity silica glass. (Yes, some small diameter gas atoms such as helium and neon are quite soluble in glass. It was a successful study that has led him to continue pursuing related research questions to this day.)

The authors' first (blind!) date was during this time and included a visit to the Italian Swiss Colony Winery in Asti, California at the time a major purveyor of better-than-average bulk vin ordinaire often sold in gallon jugs. A marriage eventually followed that blind date, and, 2 years later, we settled in Davis. While James settled into the faculty position at UC Davis, Penelope worked in the art world as a curator and gallery owner and eventually as an arts writer reviewing exhibitions on campus, home not only to a premier wine program but also to a leading department of art.

That tour of the Italian Swiss Colony Winery led to a favorite pastime of wine touring. Our journeys into the world of wine have taken us to vineyards throughout Europe, North and South America, and more recently Asia. Over these four decades living in Northern California, we have also had the privilege of watching the transformation of California's wine industry from its largely jug wine identity to the production of world-class vintages. We had arrived separately in this region at about the time Robert Mondavi was becoming a central force in that transformation. He had just opened his landmark Robert Mondavi Winery in 1966 in the heart of the Napa Valley (Figure 1.4). It was astonishing that, within a decade, the “Judgment of Paris” wine tasting would establish the best cabernet sauvignons and chardonnays¹ of the Napa Valley to be the full peers of their finest counterparts from France.

Figure 1.4 Robert Mondavi, a leading pioneer in the production of fine wines in America, toasts with a glass of wine in front of the Robert Mondavi Winery in the Napa Valley of Northern California. (Reproduced with kind permission of Anne Siegel, Robert Mondavi Winery.)

One of our early wine tours included visiting the Robert Mondavi Winery, and, in 1994, we had the privilege of meeting the man himself at a celebratory dinner at UC Davis to honor Professor of Art Wayne Thiebaud for his recent recognition with th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Chapter 1: The Perfect Material – for Wine
• Chapter 2: A Brief History of Wine – Storing and Drinking Wine Before Glass
• Chapter 3: A Brief History of Glass – and How It Came to Dominate Wine Appreciation
• Chapter 4: Modern Winemaking – A Role for Materials Other Than Glass and Ceramics
• Chapter 5: Ceramics Around the Winery – Alternatives to Oak and Stainless Steel
• Chapter 6: Glass Around the Winery – From Barrel to Lab
• Chapter 7: Perfection Through Fire – Modern Glassmaking
• Chapter 8: Beauty of a Random Nature – Glass Structure on the Atomic Scale
• Chapter 9: The Heel of Achilles – Why Glass Breaks
• Chapter 10: Let It Be Perfectly Clear – Why Glass Is Transparent
• Chapter 11: The Shape of Things – I. Why Bottles Look the Way They Do
• Chapter 12: The Shape of Things – II. The Rise (and Fall?) of Varietal-Specific Stemware
• Chapter 13: The Controversy over Cork – Glass Stoppers to the Rescue?
• Chapter 14: Perfection through Air – Glass for Aerating and Decanting Wine
• Chapter 15: The Glass of Wine – Now and Forever?
• Appendix A: A Primer on Primary Bonding
• Appendix B: Glossary
• Index
• End User License Agreement