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What the glass actually does
A wine glass does three jobs at once. It controls how much air meets the wine, directs the wine to a specific part of your tongue, and concentrates aromas at your nose.
That last part matters more than most people realize. Around 80% of what you call “taste” is actually smell. A closed-rim glass that funnels aromas to your nose changes a wine more than a different temperature would.
Everything else — bowl size, rim thickness, stem length — is variation on those three principles.
