Glassware

Two flagship wines, two glasses — this isn't a marketing gimmick, it's physics. Pinot Noir is delicate in both color and aroma. Its scents evaporate quickly if the glass doesn't capture them. A wide, round-bellied bowl with a narrowing rim gives the wine room to breathe while still funneling its aroma up to the nose instead of losing it into the room.

Malbec from Neuquén and the Alto Valle needs the opposite: less belly and more height. It's cooler and tauter than its cousin from Mendoza, with more acidity and less sweet fruit. A slimmer, taller glass keeps that tautness together instead of letting it dissipate in width. Drink both wines from the same glass, and at least one of them will disappoint.

Temperature separates the two even more clearly. Pinot Noir tolerates fourteen to sixteen degrees Celsius, barely warmer than a cellar in winter, since warmth quickly turns its delicate fruit into alcoholic heat. Malbec can go into the glass at sixteen to eighteen degrees, otherwise its tannins come across hard and edgy rather than smooth — and twenty minutes in the fridge is enough for either wine to go from room temperature to the right serving temperature.

The old, ungrafted Malbec from Mainqué also demands a decanter. After years in the bottle, its aroma has closed up. Half an hour of air opens it far more reliably than any amount of swirling in the glass. A young Pinot Noir doesn't need this — it's open from the start, sometimes even too open, and can lose its tension after just an hour in the glass.

And then there's the pour size, too often forgotten. Fill only to the widest point of the bowl, no higher — about one hundred fifty milliliters in a standard glass. Above that line remains space where the aroma can gather before rising to the nose. Fill to the brim, and you rob the wine of exactly that.