The Wine Knows

Braiden Rex-Johnson's first wine column for The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest magazine section looks at the Eisch breathable wine glass, a device purported to aerate a wine in as few as four minutes.

Braiden is Wine Press Northwest's longtime food-pairing columnist.

I picked up an Eisch glass a few years ago while judging the Riverside International Wine Competition in Southern California. Judging chairman Dan Berger was testing the glasses and gave one to each judge. He became so smitten with the glass that in 2006 he converted all his competition stemware to Eisch.

The result? An increase in gold and silver medals.

Berger figures the Eisch gives young wines a better chance to show off because they open up more quickly and reveal aromas better. If you know anything about Berger, you understand he is a skeptic at heart and eschews wine gadgets.

A lot of folks scoff at the "breathability" of the Eisch. But Berger doesn't. He sees the proof in the results of his competition.