The aesthetic of wine culture is exclusionary by design. The glassware are oppressive to handle, they can feel greasy and show fingerprints quickly, and in a home setting, offer a limited use case and seemingly are designed to tip over.
I sought to strip away the pretension of wine and create something familiar and inviting. Taking influence from the design language of wine glasses, I wanted to translate the familiar into a new sensorial form.
Ceramic makes an optimal material for enjoying wine. Its inert, so flavour isnʼt affected, it can be manipulated into the same forms as glass, so aeration is no problem. Ceramic on the other hand offers greater thermal properties, maintaining a stable temperature for longer. While ceramic isnʼt transparent like glass, fortunately transparency isnʼt a requirement to enjoy wine, nor does it have an effect on taste.
The tumblers were inspired by traditional wine glasses, as each form offers its own unique function to its paired wine in addition to embodying a familiarity that I wanted to inherit.
I note the secondary role of a decanter is to act as a centrepiece to a table setting. In designing the form, I imposed the following constraints.
1. The form had to be unique to the properties of slip casting, and not replicable on a clay wheel or through glass blowing.
2. It's presence had to be striking.
3. Fit the volume of a standard wine bottle with room to breath.
With a wall thickness of ~2mm, the final product is a rugged multipurpose vessel that is delicate to the touch yet comforting to wrap your hands around. The glazed interior makes it easy to clean while assisting in insulating the interior temperature from the raw ceramic exterior.
More at @edwardandclay