On the left, a standard heavy duty catering glass, likely made by Libbey, and intended for white wine.
In the middle, the IVDP tasting glass.
On the right, a "premium" catering glass, also intended for white wine.
How do you think these performed for Port? I know my impressions from doing this little test, but I'll let you give your opinions first.
I don't have a lot of experience with tests like this, but my guess would be that the Port glass was best followed by the premium catering glass and then finally the heavy duty catering glass. I base that almost entirely on the fact that the premium glasses shape seems closer to the Port glasses shape to me.
I've noticed when tasting my wife's red wines that an appropriate glass does seem to make a pretty significant difference, so I'm just assuming that the same is true for Port and that the IVdP's glass is the correct size and shape. (Which isn't entirely a guess... the IVdP's glass is very close to Riedel's Vinum Port glass, and "correct" shape is what Riedel is known for.)
Eric Ifune is closer on this one that Glenn, at least in my one experience with these. I was hoping someone else might offer an opinion, but with none forthcoming, here's what I found:
That premium catering glass was just too big. I got virtually no aromas out of it whatsoever. I tried it because, unlike the heavy duty catering glass, it didn't have a bead on the rim, but was greatly disappointed with its performance. Between the two smaller glasses, there wasn't much difference. Both gave much more aroma than the catering glass; however, I don't think they made the Port taste any more hot than they should have. At one point I actually got some aroma out of the cheap Libbey glass that I didn't get out of the IVDP, but it didn't do this more than once, so I think they performed about the same. Maybe with a different Port I'd get a different answer. My concern with the Libbey glass was the bead on the rim, which I thought might create some turbulence and throw off how things hit the mouth. I now give some credit to the Libbey folks. While the bead is needed for strength, the design is such that most of the bead is on the outside of the rim, and very little is on the inside, thus it really doesn't affect the pour into the mouth.
I was pleasantly surprised by this outcome, as the Libbey glass rents for $0.40-50, and the premium glass was like $2.
I have to say I sometimes prefer a slightly larger glass for very young VP's, something like a small white wine glass. It seems to allow a better nose with really young VP's with the slightly larger glass. But overall I prefer the IVDP or the Riedel Port glass (although expensive and more fragile).
