Georg Riedel gives demo on champagne glassware at Noka Chocolate in Dallas on Wednesday

by Teresa Gubbins

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He's touring the South to emphasize the impact of Riedel glasses on the taste of bubbly.

DALLAS — Since 1999, Americans have drunk more champagne every year, and especially during the holidays: In 2006, out of a total of 14.6 million cases consumed, 7 million were drunk during the last quarter of the year.

Georg Riedel, part of the Riedel wine glass dynasty, would like to see all of those cases consumed out of stemware from his family's company. He's touring the South to emphasize the impact of Riedel glasses on the taste of bubbly, and to unveil a few surprises that go against traditional thinking about how one should handle champagne.

His presentation on champagne glassware took place on Wednesday afternoon at the Noka chocolate boutique in Victory Park; later, he gave a demonstration of French reds at the Neiman Marcus store in downtown Dallas.

Dapper in a dark blue suit with subtle pink shirt, tie, and silk square in his pocket, he started with prosecco, specifically an Adriano Adami ($13.99 at PoGo's), noting its coarser bubble and its affordable, mass-produced profile. (Riedel makes a prosecco glass that's shaped vaguely like a traditional wine glass.) Next: Pommery, whose bubbles exhibited a fine "mousse." He poured it into a flute but also into an old-fashioned broad, flat "coupe" champagne glass to make the point that, compared to the taller flute, the coupe made the champagne seem harsh and one-dimensional.

Factoids: He said that the coupe was originally created for sitting-down drinking and the flute was made for standing-up. He also warned not to leave any soap residue in a champagne glass after washing it, as it would interfere with the bubbles. He shared the tip of dropping a grain of rice into the glass which would generate a steady stream of bubbles. The bubbles find an imperfection the surface from which to rise; some champagne glasses are deliberately given a tiny scratch to ensure that bubbles will appear.

He wove such a good spell with his wordage that, when he conducted the group to pour some of their champagne into a plastic glass, the champagne seemed absolutely repulsive. Can you imagine ever thinking that champagne tastes bad? But the most telling line was when he switched out his glass with someone else's whose glass seemed dusty. "What a gentleman," said one person admiringly. "No, what a SALESMAN," he said.

Then he did the two weird, discomforting things:

1. He poured a Nicolas Feuillatte rose ($46) into Riedel's massive, big-bowled signature glass, which he said was acceptable for "opulent, old champagnes". It's his glasses but nevertheless, it still seemed strange. Isn't part of the whole aesthetic is to have your champagne in a tight, sleek glass?

2. He poured the champagne into a decanter. He said that some champagnes benefited from decanting -- that the reduction of bubbles made the champagne better to drink with dinner. It still seems like a crime against champagne to defuse its bubbles.

At this point, Noka rolled out its chocolates. There was a chocolate truffle, followed by a solid dark-chocolate tab -- Tamborina, from Trinidad -- about the size of a Chiclet. The minute I got the truffle, I ate half of it, only to hear the Noka employee tell the group, "Don't eat it yet!" She wanted to hype it up with a loving description first. At least three times, she described it as being "primarily cacao and almost entirely pure, made only with chocolate and organic cream" and one other ingredient that I instantly forgot, even though she repeated it at least three times.

When she served the little tab, she cautioned the group not to chew it, but first to snap it in half, and then to put one half on the tongue so it could melt, and said that this was part of the mystique of Noka, was the luxury of being able to leave it on your tongue and enjoy it, and not chew it.

For anyone who doesn't know everything there is to know about Noka chocolate, DallasFood.org has written a fair amount about the company, including a 10-part series questioning what the chocolate is really worth.

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