On the Correct Number of Glasses

The glassware industry would like you to own eleven shapes, each engineered for a single grape, and would like you to keep them somewhere.

You require two. A larger bowl for reds, which needs room for air. A smaller bowl for whites and, per an earlier ruling, for champagne. Both should be thin at the rim, clear rather than cut or coloured, and stemmed, so that your hand does not warm what you have taken the trouble to cool.

That is the whole of it. Everything beyond those two is a refinement measurable under laboratory conditions and invisible at a dinner where anyone is talking.

If you wish to own more, own more. Glassware is a pleasant thing to collect and I possess an indefensible quantity. But do not delay drinking well until the collection is complete, and do not permit anyone to suggest that your wine is suffering for want of a Burgundy bowl.