Last night at dinner with my friends Jean-Paul and Isabelle, we were talking about how some liquids can change in taste when drunk from different containers—tea from different teapots, wine from different glasses, things like that. Jean-Paul asked, “Do you think that the bottle shape has an impact on how a wine ages?”
I have absolutely no empirical evidence to support an opinion one way or the other, having never had the opportunity to compare the same wine stored in different bottles. I know that one of the reasons cited for abandoning the old Spécial Club bottle (the one that made people think of either Perrier or bowling pins) was that the wine matured more quickly in that shape. It seems plausible to me, not necessarily in a rational or scientifically explainable sense, but in the way that, for example, a thirty year-old Barolo smells completely different when poured in a Riedel Sommelier Burgundy glass and a Vinum one.
Anyhow, it seems that Jean-Paul has been thinking about this issue quite a bit. He’s even bottled a recent vintage of his Spécial Club in both the Club bottle and a regular bottle, in order to compare their evolution in the future. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.
