“You ARE kidding me, aren’t you?” my wife said as she stared incredulously at the glass that I was using to drink my red wine. It was a squat, thick lipped, tumbler that I occasionally use for drinking water and fruit juices. “You of all people!” she added for additional taunt. “We’ve got nice crystal stemware, and you’re drinking from that . . . that thing?”
Sure enough, that’s what I was doing. It was dinnertime and I was drinking wine from a stubby, glass that was built to survive even the worst that the Terminator could inflict. Actually, the glass seems ideal for sipping Pastis, that milky white (when water is added), anise flavored liquor that the French call the “milk of Provence.” In his best selling book, Toujours Provence, Peter Mayle asserts that to enjoy Pastis, ambiance is the key ingredient, “which dictates how and where it should be drunk.” He says that it can’t be drunk in a hurry. It can’t be drunk in New York or England or “anywhere that requires its customers to wear socks. It wouldn’t taste the same. It has to be in Provence.” And although he doesn’t mention it, I suspect the right glass—a non-descript tumbler—is also one of the vital components. Anything more refined, like crystal or quality stemware, just wouldn’t do the deed.
Similarly, my wife requires a specific cup and saucer in order to properly enjoy her breakfast caffeine boost. It has to be thin-rimmed and of delicate construction. She claims the coffee is not as enjoyable and tastes completely different in anything else but fine china. Of course, I suspect the morning ambiance is given a substantial boost when she’s stirred and gently awakened by the enticing aromas of ready-to-drink, Columbian Supremo that wafts into the bedroom, courtesy of you know who.
Also, if you’re into super-premium wines, then you might also be into Riedel wine glasses from Austria. If not, be advised that they have produced a highly successful line of connoisseur wine stemware that are specifically designed to deliver the heights of drinking pleasure for each of the most popular red and white varietals. That’s correct, one individual and distinct shape for each grape varietal. Ambience, it appears, can at times make special demands of us.
But “peasant food, “as I refer to it, was one of the key players in our dinnertime ambiance: leftover stew I discovered lurking behind several Tupperwares in the corner of our freezer. Also, we had a half empty bottle of a so-so Pinot Noir sulking quietly in the food compartment door of our Sub-Zero refrigerator. It was, without a doubt, the perfect, elemental match of two underachievers who would come together to deliver their last best shot. They were destined for the other. And, as such, the moment demanded something without the breeding of a Riedel, or even the workman-like reliability of our anonymous daily drinker stemware. No, it required the perfect partner—that ordinary, undistinguished, squat little tumbler.
– Tom Barras