Guides
How to wash your wine glasses
Washing wine glasses doesn't have to be so complicated
After a pleasant evening with some delicious wine in the glass in good company, washing up the many wine glasses haunts the back of the host's mind.
Regardless of whether you choose to wash your wine glasses by hand or if you prefer the dishwasher, there are a few tips and tricks that can guide you to the best way to wash wine glasses.
- Washing wine glasses by hand
- Washing wine glasses in the dishwasher
- How to dry a wine glass
Washing wine glasses by hand
If you want to clean your wine glasses by hand, you will get the best results by following this little guide.
The following things should be kept in mind when washing your wine glasses by hand.
If you can't bear to do the dishes right away, it's perfectly okay to leave the glasses overnight with wine residue in them. In fact, dried wine residue is preferable to the lime residue left by dried water.
Detergent without perfume is the best way to clean your wine glasses.
Use a clean dish brush or a new cleaning sponge.
The water should not be too hot. 40°C is perfect.
Gently wash the glass in a tub and rinse with clean water.
Dry and polish the glass in a large, clean, lint-free tea towel. We will look at the drying technique itself later. Gentleness is the password!
The glass must smell of nothing, and in particular not of washing-up liquid or acidic tea towel.
Place the wine glass with the opening upwards, and not with the bottom in the air. In this way, excess moisture can evaporate.
Washing wine glasses in the dishwasher
Dishwasher safe wine glasses:
The vast majority of the world's major manufacturers of wine and drink glasses say that their glasses are dishwasher safe.
If the manufacturer does not directly recommend machine washing, it is usually at least tolerated by most manufacturers.
The big glass manufacturers such as Spiegelau, Riedel, Zalto and Lucaris recommend washing wine glasses in the dishwasher. Regardless of how you choose to wash your wine glasses, it's always a good idea to check the glass manufacturer's recommendations.
You can easily wash wine glasses in the dishwasher. Especially if the dishwasher has special glass programs with a suitably low temperature.
In the past, the dishwasher was considered an absolute no-go when cleaning wine glasses. That skepticism had some justification, as dishwashers in the past did not have such advanced glass programs as today.
Fortunately, today there is no shame in being a lazy dishwasher. On the contrary, in fact, because dishwashers and glass manufacturers are very good friends today. The restaurant industry washes wine glasses at a high temperature, but for a short time. It is precisely the combination of time and temperature that is the key. And then softeners on an industrial scale, but that's another story.
There are a few smart tricks that ensure that your glasses have a perfect experience of a trip in the dishwasher.
Important when washing in the washing machine:
Make sure the machine is correctly set for the hardness of your local water and that the machine is filled with rinse aid and salt. Check the hardness of your water here at GEUS and follow the instructions in your dishwasher's user manual.
Only fill wine glasses in your machine. Nothing with pots, bowls and plates at the same time.
Place the wine glasses firmly and firmly in the machine. Avoid them hitting each other and make sure there is plenty of space around the wine glasses. It is not a good idea to be too violent and just squeeze an extra glass down. Rather too much than too little space. If necessary, use a wine glass holder for the dishwasher.
Use the dishwasher's glass program or avoid the temperature exceeding 45°C, and ensure a short washing time if there is no special glass program on your dishwasher.
As soon as the machine has finished washing the dishes, open the door to let the glasses steam off for a few minutes.
Now you dry the glasses carefully with tea towels. We look at the drying technique in a separate section here in the article.
Again, as with hand washing, the wine glass must be left to breathe, and therefore not with the bottom in the air.
How to dry a wine glass
In order to dry your wine glasses efficiently and effectively and at the same time prevent them from breaking, we have a few good tips here.
Towels and drying towels must be washed in perfume-free detergent and fabric softener is banned.
Use lint-free pieces of either cotton fabric or microfiber towels. Microfiber cleaning cloths are brilliant, and the best ones are the kind designed for cleaning glass surfaces like mirrors and the like.
We recommend that you use two good-sized towels, one for each hand. Alternatively, a very(!) large piece can also do it.
Now comes the trick! Hold the glass on the cup when wiping. By far the most frequent cause of broken wine glasses is twisting of the glass. It is very easy and tempting to twist the stem and cup in opposite directions to dry the glass. Unfortunately, this is also an effective way to ruin a good wine glass, as it is very easy to achieve too much torque in the movement.
If possible, it is a good idea to have some drying racks that you only use to dry wine glasses and decanters.
How to prepare and store your wine glasses
Glasses of all kinds, including wine glasses, are best stored with the bottom down and the opening up. In this way, the glass gets rid of all excess moisture, and you avoid that the glass takes on an odor from the cardboard box or cupboard in which it is stored.
Before you use the wine glass, it is still a good idea to smell the glass. A stay in a cardboard box or a wooden cabinet can give the glasses an unwanted smell.
You can usually easily remove this smell by rinsing the glass in a little water and drying it afterwards.
Or you can do as the professionals in the restaurant industry, the wine waiters, do. A serious sommelier, if necessary, "washes" the glass in wine before serving by flinging a little wine around in the glass.
You can advantageously do the same, and then pour the mixture into the sink or down your throat.
That's why your wine glasses look weird
Matte or white glasses after washing:
Either your glass is limescaled, or it is attacked by glass blight. The matte, white and milky surface that can appear on glass after frequent washing in the machine is generally due to two things: limescale or glass plague. One is easier to solve than the other, because there is a difference between the two.
Glass plague on wine glasses:
Glass fouling is seen as a white stripe at the top of a glass, and is actually silicic acid in the glass mass, which is released when the temperature rises above 60-65°C over a long period of time. Glass plague destroys the structural structure of the glass itself, and cannot be removed.
It is most often old glass that is affected by glass plague, and glass production today is based on glass mass with a composition that is more resistant to glass plague.
If the damage has occurred and your glasses have glass blight, there is unfortunately nothing to do. You either have to live with the glasses as they are or discard them.
Therefore, avoid too high a temperature for too long if you want to be on the safe side.
Lime on glass:
Another source of white wine glasses is limescale residue, which can occur due to too much washing-up liquid or a breach of the salt balance in the dishwasher. There will be scale on the glass if there is not enough salt in the dishwasher.
The coating of lime can be removed by using acetic acid in a solution of warm water to soak the glass (2 deciliters of acetic acid to one liter of warm water). Another solution to white limescale streaks on glass is to wash the machine and glass with citric acid, which is an effective limescale remover.