Andrew Jefford: 'Serious wine glasses are intimidating: they're a prelude to silence and endeavour'

The Alsace town of Riquewihr was where I found them. A march up the cobbled Rue du Général de Gaulle, past the coloured, half-timbered houses, to a shop called L’Aventure. Not misnamed: it was chaos in there.

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The wine glasses I wanted were hiding in a dusty, half-open cabinet in the basement, and had no price. The shop assistant superintending the ground-floor bazaar was foxed; he phoned the owner. Fifteen euros each, came the answer; I settled. Squat, with an olive-green beehive stem, and the small bowl elegantly engraved with bunches of grapes, vine leaves and curling tendrils. You fill them almost full, of course. Silly glasses. Gloriously silly.

Don’t I know better? Shouldn’t I be saving for Riedel Superleggeros, or Zalto Denk’Arts? Even Bestheim, Alsace’s largest cooperative, is wagging its website finger at me: ‘Alsace wines are often served in glasses with green stems. This kind of glass is not, however, ideal. It is too small to oxygenate the wine and the green-coloured stem interferes with the wine’s true colour.’ Yes, I know, and yes, I won’t be organising any professional wine tastings with these clumsy, dinky-chunky little glasses. But I still love them. We still use them. To drink with.