Glass And Wine Art

The traditionally held-to-be proper way to drink from a wine glass, especially when drinking white or otherwise chilled wine, is to grasp it by the stem. The most commonly accepted reasoning for this is to avoid fingerprints on the bowl, and to prevent the temperature of the wine from being affected by body heat.
Materials
Wine glasses made of fused or cut glass will often interfere with the flavor of the wine, as well as creating a rough, thick lip, from which it is not as pleasurable to drink. Blown glass results in a better vessel, with a thinner lip, and is usually acceptable for casual wine drinkers. High quality wine glasses are often made of lead crystal. Lead crystal glasses' advantages are not only primarily aesthetic. One factor of lead crystal is it is generally considered to have a higher index of refraction, thus changing the effect of light passing through them. Lead crystal is also rougher than glass on a microscopic level, allowing wine in the glass to breathe more efficiently when swirled in the bowl. They are also heavier. Using lead in the crystal matrix also offers several advantages in the material's workability during production. Wine glasses are generally not colored or frosted as this would impede the appreciation of its colour. An exception to this rule is the hock glass.