Wine Glass

Wine glasses are used for serving all kinds of classic and modern cocktails—unsurprisingly, most of them contain white or red wine. Some old favorites include the Kir, a simple duo made with white wine and crème de cassis, or the Aperol Spritz, which despite being made with prosecco (an Italian sparkling wine) is often served in a standard wine glass.

Wine glasses come in countless different shapes and sizes, from stately, old-fashioned flute designs to modern stemless glasses. In general, though, the most common wine glasses are stemmed and feature wide, round bowls.

Red wine glass bowls are typically squat and wide, allowing plenty of surface area for the wine to oxidize (or “breathe”) after it’s poured. White wine glasses, on the other hand, tend to be a bit narrower and taller. As far as most of us are concerned, though, there’s not a hell of a lot of difference—the amount that glassware affects your wine is pretty negligible, especially when it comes to cocktails.