The Tiny Wine Glasses Taking Over Wine Bars

In 1970, the Institut National des Appellations d’Origine (INAO)—the French government agency created to designate and regulate Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) wines—selected its official glass.

It was a far cry from the big, swirl-friendly bowls, highly calibrated curves and flares you might see at a tasting today. The glass stood at just over six inches tall, with a short stem and a small tulip-shaped bowl—about 1.8 inches in diameter at the rim with a total volume of seven ounces. The same specs were adopted by the International Standards Organization (ISO) not long after.

Fifty-plus years later, casual wine drinkers in the United States might not know the industry terminology for what came to be known as the INAO or ISO glass. But recently, you may have seen one out in the wild.

These tasting glasses and similarly shaped cousins are increasingly de rigueur for cool new small wine bars and restaurants with convention-bucking wine lists in places like New York City (Frog, Le Dive) and Oakland (Snail Bar, Friends and Family) in California. They’re also found in other culinary capitals across North America, from Hugo in Mexico City to Agua de Mar in the Yucatán city of Mérida to Tinc Set in Montreal.

Image Courtesy of Le Dive

From France to Your Wine Bar

Though the exact pathways of its spread are hard to trace definitively, it’s no surprise that these glasses are commonplace in the city of the INAO headquarters, which—surprise, surprise—is a city chock-full of influential wine bars.

“I’ve encountered this preference for a smaller glass at a few of my favorite restaurants and bars around Paris,” says Sara McCall, wine director and front-of-house manager at Chicago’s Cellar Door Provisions. She cites places like Verre Volé, which helped bring natural wine to the masses when it opened in 2000.

At Cellar Door, McCall uses an INAO glass from Ravenscroft Crystal for digestivi and smaller servings of wine. Larger pours go into the Orcy 26cl glass—still compact, but with a longer stem and a slightly fuller bowl.

“There is a kind of elegance to a humble and practical glass,” which can work for a large range of wines, McCall says, “without being too fussy or precious.”

Matt Diaz, co-owner of Bar Birba in Brooklyn, is also a fan. He uses ISO tasting glasses from Luigi Bormioli.

“I chose them because they are very convenient to use while also specifically designed for tasting wine,” he explains. “A larger center and medium-sized opening allows for the wine to aerate in the glass and concentrates the aroma at the opening.”

Diaz describes the glasses as a “very practical choice for a wine bar that does a decent amount of volume.” It’s easy to store, relatively inexpensive, durable but “fine enough to not feel clunky,” and, thanks to the shorter stem, less likely to be knocked over.

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But there’s also something a little more ephemeral about it. “The drinking experience we imagine is like a dive bar,” explains Tuan Bui, owner-operator at Lai Rai in Manhattan. “It can be common for guests to start with a couple wine glasses”—INAO tasting glasses from Stölzle, specifically—as they decide what they’re in the mood for, or chat with the staff about the Vietnamese snacks and desserts on the menu. The vibe, helped along by the glass, is casual and friendly.

Bui agrees that the small size and durability make a difference behind the scenes, but also finds that tasting glasses just match the Lai Rai atmosphere and crowd. “Operating a small wine bar in Chinatown, some nights start chill, and suddenly that casual aura morphs into a fast-paced, high-energy vibe,” Bui says. “It’s a full house, sometimes standing room only, and that wine glass is kinda perfect in that moment.”

Many of the places adopting the INAO/ISO style also happen to focus on natural wines. It’s not so much because the glasses are well-suited to those wines in particular (fans of funk might have seen that Zalto made a glass for those); it’s because these bars and restaurants are precisely the kind of small, unfussy, perhaps slightly irreverent establishments where they just make sense.

“I think, visually, the choice for a tasting glass in a restaurant can be seen as more casual,” McCall says, and perhaps more “welcoming to wine drinkers, regardless of their knowledge and experience.”

Lai Rain glassware — Image Courtesy of Lai Rain

Do Experts Like Them?

Still, INAO/ISO glasses are far from the default for many wine professionals. Liz Martinez, sommelier and general manager of Kiln at Alexandria’s Hotel Heron, says she’s surprised to see such small glasses trending.

“Texture is so important—that’s part of what makes the wine experience sexy,” Martinez says. “I kind of feel like those smaller glasses would make that not part of the experience as much.”

She compares the rationale for choosing wider glasses to the shift away from serving sparkling wines in narrow flutes. “You’re kind of just shooting it down your throat, whereas if you have something with a wider mouth, it’s going to spread out a little bit differently.”

Those concerns aside, though, Martinez says she can get behind motivating factors like durability and storage. Kiln, too, has streamlined its glassware, serving most wines in a versatile universal glass. Martinez does describe herself as “a believer” in the power of glasses specially tailored to certain styles or varieties, but in the end, the realities of the business mean that “having six different types of wine glasses doesn’t necessarily make sense.”

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Likewise, many who gravitate toward a smaller tasting glass can see the appeal of other glassware in the right context.

“I generally prefer the style we use [at Bar Birba] when out at a wine bar, but there is something nice about more specific wine glasses being used in fine dining,” Diaz says. If he ran a different kind of restaurant with an unlimited budget, he grants, the glassware might be different, too.

“There are plenty of beautifully crafted wine glasses out there, truly some are works of art,” he says. But “for smaller places, run on Brooklyn margins, I try and find the best balance of function, aesthetic and price.”

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