You’ve been pouring champagne wrong, experts say — here’s how to serve it correctly
Put a cork in it — you’ve been pouring your bubbly all wrong.
Despite what we’ve been told, flutes are not the ideal glass to sip champagne from, according to experts.
Tall, slender flutes are “terrible for appreciating the wine,” sommelier Richard Hemming, the head of wine at the exclusive members-only club 67 Pall Mall Singapore, told Business Insider.
“You have to tip way too far back to actually drink the stuff,” he said, explaining that the tapered glass makes the bubbles concentrated and makes both pouring and drinking champagne a headache.
The narrow opening of flutes does not allow the consumer to properly smell the aroma of the champagne — an integral part of enjoying wine — and could affect the flavor, Hemming claims.
Instead, he prefers to use a universal wine glass. While seemingly sacrilegious to novice champagne enjoyers, the sommelier insists the wider glass allows the beverage to “express itself very clearly,” meaning sippers can smell the drink as they consume it.
He also highlighted how vital it is to have high-quality glassware to sip out of. For example, his place of employment uses costly Zalto glasses.
But Hemming isn’t alone in his thinking.
“A good all-purpose wine glass is a great vessel for drinking champagne, because it really allows you to get all the flavors and experience the wine as the producer intended,” Zero Bond and Sartiano wine director Cameron Nadler previously told HuffPost.
“Champagne flutes are not a thing of the past, but I do find that it’s better to drink champagne from a larger glass.”
Sales of champagne have slumped in recent months, luxury goods company LVMH reported over the summer. The company, which saw a 12% decline in sales in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year, speculated that a lack of celebratory moments that typically call for popping a bottle was to blame.
“Champagne is quite linked with celebration, happiness, et cetera,” CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony said on a previous earnings call, Business Insider reported at the time.
“Maybe the current global situation, be it geopolitical or macroeconomic, does not lead people to cheer up and to open bottles of champagne. I don’t really know.”
