Sip and Shake Style: Stunning Stemware

As your guests enjoy your dinner cocktails or wine, the size and shape of glass will serve to enhance their experience further by promoting the beverage you intend to serve. With starter sets for novice entertainers to note-worthy stemware suggestions for Putting-on-the-Ritz, your personal stemware gallery promises to deliver stellar toasts at all celebrations.

If you plan to serve several types of drinks and wine but don't want to break the piggy bank for several types of glassware, start with these three types of glasses to have your own stemware starter kit.

What to Get if You're a Beginner:

So you're a beginner with the wine tasting and don't know where to start? Here are some helpful tips for how to stock up your bar.

• Highball Glasses
  8 to 10 oz glasses are ideal for soda, water, beer and most mixed cocktails. Place your glasses on fabulous custom coasters from For Your Party, where you can design your very own coaster.
• Martini Glasses
  This is used for serving drinks that are not poured over ice so a stemmed glass is ideal. Buy a set of 8 or 10 colorful classics. Feel like Dorothy Parker, famous author, roundtable trend-setter and martini lover, while sipping your martini.
  For a bit of fun, check out such cheeky martini note cards at Martini Art.
• Tulip-Shaped Wine Glasses
  If you're not ready (or don't have the space) for different wine glasses for different wines, start with a set of tulip-shaped wine glasses. A good wine glass that works with whatever you are pouring is 10 oz and has a slight curve in at the top to hold in the bouquet.

What to Get if You're an Expert:

As you expand your palette to more exotic cocktails (hopefully with encouragement from yours truly), your stemware cabinet will need to grow as well. From aperitif glasses to champagne flutes, here's a toast to celebrating with friends and family throughout the year.

• Apertif Glass
  Aperitifs are small and they prepare you for a meal. They are served in narrow, tall glasses with a thick bottom. Perhaps the most famous one-name aperitif of them all is Campari, the ruby red Italian drink whose recipe is guarded more carefully than the Vatican transcripts. In fact, its recipe has been a secret since 1860, when its creator, Gaspare Campari, first began bottling his product.
• Champagne Flutes
  Stunning flutes hold approximately 4 oz. They are beautiful for the bubbly and Prosecco. Enjoy 'champers' like Veuve Clicquot in novel stemware found at one of my favorite museum shops in New York City, The Modern, MoMa.
• Tumblers or Old-Fashioned: This short tumbler is best suited for whiskey or on-the-rocks drinks like a Burnt Caipirinha.
• Wine Glasses for Reds
  The Bowl: Wider with wider opening.
  The bigger flavors in reds need a wider bowl to spread out to release bold flavors.
• Wine Glasses for Whites
  The Bowl: Thinner with narrower opening.
  The smaller capacity of these wine glasses help keep temperatures cooler longer.
• Decanter
  Wine Decanters are more than just a stylish vessel for wine. Wine Decanters allow wines to breathe, soften tannins, and open up bouquet and aroma. Perfect for wines with sediment, wine decanters allow for clarity, giving you a refined texture and flavor. For an extensive selection of divine decanters, visit The Wine Enthusiast.

Where to Shop

Finding your stemware may be the toughest part of your wine experience: where can you get what you need without breaking the bank? Read on to find out!

• You will hit the bulls-eye with affordable entertaining glasses at Target.
• For everything under the sun and 'best in glass' stemware, you should look for Austrian based RIEDEL with many retail locations, you can find beautiful stemware and glasses for both technical and hedonistic purposes.
• When the sky is the limit, exquisite specialty items from Baccarat will transform your home into a very special place. As one invents one's own style by going from the useful to the fanciful, home becomes a daily stage where pleasure and beauty stand as its only requirements.