In the world of wine, you may be surprised to learn, not all glasses are made equal. If you want to get the best out of your red, keep the bubbles in your champagne or give your next rose the respect it deserves, you may well need to pay more attention to the glass you decide to use. A quick guide four glasses that should just about cover everything and should be in your cupboard.

 The tall, thin flute for champagne and sparkling

For champagne and sparkling wine there’s nothing better than the tall, thin flute, especially if you want to preserve the bubbles as long as possible. That’s what the narrow design and opening actually does. One tip to keep in mind is that you should avoid washing flutes in the dishwasher as the soap can coat the inside of the glass and stop bubbles forming when you pour out your champagne.

Smaller white wine glass

White wine glasses are a little smaller than your average red wine ones. That’s because you want to be filling the glasses with less wine and topping up more often – whites are generally chilled and if you leave it in the glass too long then it’s going to warm up. To keep it cooler for even longer, always hold the glass by the stem as much as you can.

Red wine glasses

Your ideal glass for red wine should be much bigger and that’s because you want to catch all those wonderful aromas and flavours as much as possible. You’ll want to move the wine around in the glass with a gentle swirling motion. A larger glass also enables your wine to breathe properly.

Glasses for sweet and fortified wines

These are much smaller than other wine glasses, mainly because it’s not the kind of drink that you polish off in one sitting. There’s still room to swirl the wine around but you’ll be perhaps having one or two glasses at most.