Red wine glasses are bigger, while glasses meant for white wine are usually smaller.
And that's about as far as most people's knowledge on proper drinking ware goes.
But could your glass choice really affect the wine sample?
Are you hampering the taste of that expensive birthday wine by sipping it out of your favourite decorative glass?
With a few tips from top-flight sommeliers, you can rest assured that you are enjoying that bottle to its fullest.
A good wineglass should be round, funnel-shaped and made of thin glass. The rounded form helps concentrate the fragrances so that the wine's particular flavours are easier to distinguish, explains Ernst Buescher of the German Wine Institute.
Most people automatically purse their lips when drinking from a vessel made of thin glass, which allows the wine to flow over the entire tongue and its scent to drift back into the nose through the throat when the person eventually swallows.
Usually what you think you're tasting with wine is actually its scent, says Buescher.
But you have to give the wine space to breathe first, which means you don't want glasses that are too small, and they should not be filled past more than a third, says Peer F. Holm of the Sommelier Union.
Champagne glasses are tall and made of thin glass so the sparkling wine stays cool.
Credit: DWI/DPA
While a good pour can be appreciated for other reasons, you can't smell anything in those generously served full goblets of wine.
Even the stem of the wineglass can play a role - your hand can easily warm up the wine and smear the glass.
The stem should be long enough that you can easily hold the glass between your thumb, index and middle fingers, counsels Gerhard Frank, who works for a wine-glass manufacturer.
While these factors can vary depending on the type of wine, trying out a new grape variety doesn't mean buying a new glass to go with it. According to experts, the average drinker needs only keep a set of red, white and Champagne glasses at home.
You can even get away with using the same medium-sized glasses for serving white or red.
Glasses for reds create more space for the aroma to raise and enter the nose.
Credit: DWI/DPA
That said, in case you want to really dazzle guests with your wine sophistication, various glasses exist for specific wine types.
A red wine glass, first and foremost, is distinguishable by its size, being much bigger than a white wine glass in order to allow that scent more room to unfold.
White wine glasses are smaller than their red cousins for two reasons.
Firstly, because the wine is consumed cold and a small glass at room temperature won't warm it up so much. And secondly, the flavours are more delicate.
They get lost in too big of a glass, explains Buescher.
For those wine drinking occasions that go beyond the everyday, Holm says you can differentiate between smaller glasses for lighter white wines and bigger glasses for the more luxuriant varieties such as Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc.
Lighter white wines need a small, narrow glass that concentrates their smell, while the more brash ones need more air for their scent, says Frank.
DPA