If ever there was a time to splash out on champagne flutes, this is it. With millions of people planning a sparkling entree to the next millennium, glasses to contain the precious midnight fuel are high on Christmas wishlists. The shops are full of them - everything from design classics and cut-glass monsters to some spectacularly ephemeral numbers with 2000 emblazoned on their fronts in glitter dots. If you're buying for a wine lover, though (or anybody with pretensions in that direction), it's as well to get the essentials right. Clear, plain glass: that's the first thing. Wine fans like to have a good view of the liquid inside - to assess its hue and tell-tale quality signs such as the size and persistence of the little bubbles rising - so coloured glass and cut glass are out, out, out. In fact, decoration of any kind is frowned on - which rules out the etched patterns, twirly gold and silver lines and all the other jolly adornments you'll see warring for attention on the shelves.
The thickness of the glass is important, too. The thinner it is, without being ridiculously fragile, the better your wine-minded mate will like it (which rules out cut crystal again). Another thing to be aware of is that some inexpensive and quite good-looking glasses, thin as anyone could wish for, are marred by a clumsily thick, machine-rolled rim.
Now, shape. You'll see divine-looking glasses all over the place, flaring upwards and outwards from the base like lilies. Or going straight up and out in an inverted cone, like the elegant iittala glass in the photograph. Be careful who they're destined for, because while style-addicts may love them, wine purists won't. At best, they'll consider these wide-mouthed statement-makers OK for fun fizz but no good for champagne - and who's got enough cupboard space these days for two sets of flutes?
The reason for this stern verdict is simple. Half the pleasure of a good wine, whether it's sparkling or still, comes from the aroma. And aroma-friendly glasses are the ones that taper in a little at the top, allowing the drinker to swirl, then sniff. (Try this ritual with a lily-shaped glass and you'll find both the bubbly and its vapours go flying out the top.) You can travel the length and breadth of Champagne and never see anything remotely similar in form to a champagne flute. A glass with a wider bowl is considered essential to appreciate the subtleties of the region's elixir. That's why I slipped a tall-stemmed white-wine glass with suitably tapering bowl into the picture.
For true wine aficionados, no vacillation should be necessary. One name counts above all others, and that is Riedel, the Austrian firm whose glass-shapes have been designed very precisely to enhance the taste of different wines. Mitchells, the Irish agents, now supply Riedel glasses to about a dozen leading wine merchants around the country, besides keeping a wide stock in their own shops in Kildare Street and Glasthule; you'll also find them in Direct Wine Shipments, Belfast.
I don't think it matters all that much whether Riedel's scientific theories about glass shape and its impact on flavour are correct or not (although I'm a believer). The main thing is that these glasses just feel wonderful to drink from - making wine even more of a sensual pleasure than it is already. Now there's a fin de siecle thought to keep in mind when you go flute shopping.