While on the surface the idea of choosing wine glasses based on the type of wine being consumed may seem pretentious, there’s method to the madness.

The pay-off could make your $9.99 Cabernet drink like a much more elegant wine.

At the most basic level, proper glassware can be grouped into three distinct shapes.

Fluted glasses are made for champagne. The tall, thin shape allows the bubbles to concentrate and then beautifully dissipate up the long column of champagne.

Red wine glasses tend to have the largest bowls and can sometimes resemble a small fishbowl. This shape allows these big-bodied and aromatic wines to have more surface area with which to interact with oxygen – breathing, so to speak. This allows the complexity of red wine flavor characteristics to shine through and the nose to have free reign.

White wine glasses have smaller bowls to help concentrate the more gentle aromas of this family of wines and allow less exposure to air, something white wines don’t demand like their red cousins.

High-end glassware manufacturers, like Austrian-based Riedel, have capitalized on the specific glass trend and make a variety of different shapes and sizes that are identified by the wine the glass design is crafted to accentuate.

My own experience shows that glassware can make a difference. I ordered a glass of sparkling ros