As autumn approaches and soirée season heats up, it's time to make an important public service announcement for party hosts everywhere: I hate to be a downer, but drinking and dishwashing do not mix.
If you find yourself at the end of an evening with a blood-alcohol level in the no-drive zone, consider leaving the soiled crystal stemware for morning. Procrastination, in this case, will pay off.
"Fill the glasses up with water and go to bed and come back the next day," advises John Clerides, owner of Marquis Wine Cellars, a wine store in Vancouver's west end.
Mr. Clerides's caution against dishwashing under the influence is just one of many tips for the care and feeding of your precious glasses. It's taking on special resonance these days, as even budding wine enthusiasts plunge into the costly but rewarding world of fashionably large Riedel stemware and "breathable" Eisch decanters.
As well, those tips are being matched by an ever-expanding panoply of cleaning accessories, from lint-free microfibre polishing cloths to "cleaning balls" designed to gently loosen caked on sediment from decanters.
"I have my 'John's rules,' I call them," Mr. Clerides continues. Near the top of his list is one piece of advice that needs no explanation: Remove your rings. As another precaution he advises, "don't get your friends to help. You wash the dishes yourself." That way, if something breaks, you will have only yourself to blame.
Guarding against breakage is just one issue. For a growing number of wine devotees, cleanliness is just as big.
And no commonplace wine-glass stain is more stubborn than lipstick.
For that foe, Mr. Clerides employs a two-pronged assault. First, he says, cup the bowl of the glass with one hand. This ensures it won't twist and snap away from the stem, which can happen when you grab it by the latter. Then gently rub the rim with a soft, soapy sponge.
Should this approach fail, hold the glass - this time by the stem - in a downward position over a pot or kettle of boiling water, being careful not to get your skin too close to the steam. The steam ought to loosen even the waxiest brand. Once moistened, cup the glass more securely by the bowl and polish with a lint-free cloth. A good brand is the reusable Vino Life Microfibre Ez Clean, about $10 for a package of two, available at kitchenware stores such as Pepper Mill in Toronto and Cookworks in Vancouver.
Some experts recommend this method as the ideal way to clean all wine glasses without having to bother with soap. But it presumes you are obsessive-compulsive and have too much time on your hands. My preference is to fill the sink at least halfway up with lightly soapy water and work in assembly-line fashion, one glass in the sink at a time. (If the sink is any less than half full, a dropped glass is more likely to break.) The key here is to keep the faucet twisted as far out of the way as possible. The faucet is a tall glass's worst enemy, next to a tipsy dinner guest.
This raises the inevitable dishwasher question. Most makers of fancy stemware advise against them for two reasons: Abrasive machine detergents can leave permanent streaks in fine, porous crystal; and, more important, the whirring jets of water and precarious tines on the bottom rack make it tantamount to asking a bull to polish your china.
The nice thing in theory about a dishwasher, should you occasionally want to risk your shorter crystal stems in them as I sometimes do, is that you can use a rinsing agent to get the glass spotless without having to polish. Wine-accessory manufacturers, ever the entrepreneurial sorts, have come up with a couple of ways to help secure wineglasses on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. The most successful, to my mind, is the ADI Glass-Safe holder, introduced about a year ago. Made of plastic, it's a circular scaffold that rests on the bottom of any dishwasher rack and suspends up to eight glasses in an upside-down position, like those overhead racks behind the bar in some taverns. It sells for about $13.
But perhaps a more common and insidious problem when it comes to glassware is soap itself. There's nothing like the smell of laundry to ruin a pricey wine or fresh beer. Beer can in fact be especially sensitive to soapy residue. If carbonation streams up aggressively from the bottom or adheres to the side of a glass, forming a thick head that is unusually slow to dissipate, you could be the victim of a soapy mug.
The moral: Rinse all your glassware; then, when you think you've rinsed enough, rinse again. Even a perfectly rinsed glass can, however, corrupt the flavour of your wine. Stray aromas from the cupboard - say, the lavender of a scented candle - can settle on the glass. This is why it's become trendy among wine cognoscenti to "season" or "burn" wine glasses before filling.
The idea is to pour a tiny amount, roughly a teaspoon or two, of the wine into the glass and roll it around to coat most of the inside bowl. This same wine is then poured from the first glass into the second glass at the table, and so on.
The toughest items to keep clean are decanters. Designed to aerate rich, concentrated wines over hours, or in some cases even overnight, decanters are especially prone to staining. And because they typically have a wide base and narrow neck, they're hard to scrub.
A variety of bendable foam brushes have sprouted up in recent years, but the must-have decanter accessory now is a jar of Eisch cleaning balls. Tiny, rice-size stainless steel marbles, they work by delicate friction. Pour the balls into the decanter with a small volume of lukewarm water and gently roll them around. (They also work on the mineral deposits that form inside vases and coffee pots.) They're available at Pepper Mill and Cookworks as well as at Willow Park Wines & Spirits in Calgary and C.A. Paradis in Ottawa, as well as various other kitchenware stores around the country.
Alternatively, Alain Laliberté, a wine agent and former sommelier in Toronto, has the most effortless decanter cleaning idea I've come across. His secret? Efferdent, the denture-cleaning tablets. Drop two into the carafe with enough hot tap water to cover the stain, and leave to bubble away overnight. Rinse well in the morning.
To erase any residual stain, repeat the process the following night. "If possible, get the unscented one," Mr. Laliberté advises. "But if you get the minty one, just rinse well with hot and then cold water."
Should any mint residue remain, he says, the solution is simple: Season it with wine.