Is 2016 the year the world will remember as the death of the Champagne flute? If international (and local) trends have anything to say about it, they’re saying adieu to the cylindrical party favourite.

In its place comes more specific stemware, which better shows off the aroma and flavour of fizz. After all, bubbly is about more than just bubbles.

This point was neatly underscored by Mr Bubbles himself at a recent Graham Beck tasting. Pieter Ferreira has been putting the bubbles in the bottles of the aforementioned winery for around 27 years. The purpose of the tasting was to compare three Méthode Cap Classiques (MCCs) in two glasses each to give ‘each bubble the best chance to unlock its perfection in the perfect glass’.

Ferreira asks: “How does the carbonation and effervescence flow in, and how does it affect the flavour of MCC?”

To answer this question he went on a trip to Champagne and found not a flute in sight. He says this was a ‘wake up call’, and so he delved into the research of Champagne scientists Guillaume Polidori, Philippe Jeandet, and Gerard Liger-Belair to aid his quest.


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