Glass confronts us at every turn. The windows in our homes, the vessels for drinking, the spectacles that improve our vision, the microscopic fibers that provide modern communication – all are made of glass. So common and taken for granted – too often we pay little attention to glass unless it breaks. In the title The Glass of Wine, the word glass is at the heart of the book. Today wine remains the one beverage for which glass is used so pervasively in its making, containing, transporting, and drinking.

From the perspective of Davis, California, the home of a world-renowned wine program at the University of California, Davis, and James' work in glass science, Penelope's in art, and their combined passion for touring the wine regions of the world, The Glass of Wine developed organically over four decades. Initially, we learned about the basic bottle shapes associated with the common varietals. Then, we also came to recognize which size and shape of stemware were used for the various varietals: a cabernet versus a chardonnay and on and on. Touring made us aware of the ever-present glass equipment used in the laboratories of wineries, and, during these travels, we regularly happened upon glass collections in museums and the private collections of wine makers. As the concept of a book fully devoted to the unique and ubiquitous role of glass in wine emerged, historical research followed and the discovery of just how intimately the worlds of glass and wine have been intertwined over so many centuries.

Countless books have been written on wine, regions, tours, and tastings, but unlike others The Glass of Wine focuses on the glass itself and records its importance to the development of wine over three millennia. We hope its readers will find the same fascination with this unique and profound role of glass in the world of wine as we have. Santé, Salute, Salud!

We wish to thank a number of people who have been most helpful in bringing this book to fruition. First and foremost we would like to thank the excellent staff of The American Ceramic Society, especially Greg Geiger and Eileen De Guire who helped connect us with their publishing partners at Wiley and especially there Michael Leventhal, Divya Narayanan, and Beryl Mesiadhas who guided us expertly through the final stages of manuscript preparation. Writing a book about the intersection of two major industries, wine and glass, could not be possible without the support of key components of both industries. You will find specific credits throughout the book for images made possible through the courtesy of numerous wineries, winemakers, fine dining establishments, and glass producers. These brief acknowledgments in fact do not do justice to what was often an extended and joyous interaction. The many images from the Six Senses Restaurant in the Duoro Valley of Portugal in Chapter 13 are noteworthy in that they archive a fascinating convergence of glass technology and wine appreciation in the use of Port Tongs by the skillful hands of Wine Director, Mario Claro.

Special thanks are due to the generosity of the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG) and the associated Rakow Research Library in Corning, New York. The Library was exceptionally generous in time and consultation for James during the time he was attending an ACerS Glass and Optical Materials Division meeting in Corning in 2010 during the early research phase on the book. This was followed by the equally generous support of the CMOG staff in providing an incredible set of high-resolution images of many priceless pieces of glassware from their collection. In the same way, Riedel and Luigi Bormioli, leading suppliers of fine wine glassware, provided images of their production technologies and the stunningly beautiful products of those technologies.

As noted a number of times throughout this book, our exposure to the wine world has been enhanced by being near the wine program at UC Davis, the leading program in the United States and one of the premier ones in the world. We have been most fortunate to know Dr. Clare Hasler-Lewis, Executive Director of the Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) for Wine and Food Science. RMI houses the Department of Viticulture and Enology whose faculty members have been generous with their time and knowledge over the years, with special appreciation to colleagues Roger Boulton and David Block who have had joint appointments in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Andrew Waterhouse who provided James and his camera open access to the laboratories around RMI as well as the LEED Platinum Teaching Winery. We are also indebted to Dr. Patrick McGovern, from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology (the Penn Museum). Dr. McGovern is without peer in uncovering the history of wine and other fermented beverages. His generosity, along with that of his colleagues at the Penn Museum, was essential to our ability to view the history of winemaking through our lens of glass.

Discussing the science and technology of glass was greatly aided by the kindness of James' editor at Pearson, Holly Stark, who provided the permission to use numerous illustrations from his textbook, Introduction to Materials Science for Engineers. Visualizing the nature of glass on the atomic scale was aided by Professor Sabyasachi Sen of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UC Davis who provided numerous computer-generated images and identified an additional critical example from his colleague Professor Jincheng Du of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of North Texas.

Some individuals not seen in these pages are nonetheless equally worthy of our thanks. Professor Lilian Davila of the University of California, Merced, is a friend to both of us while she continues the computational studies of glasses and related materials she began as a student here at UC Davis, including illustrations of the atomic arrangement in glass and ceramics. Lilian was the first to point out to us the double helix in common quartz, a structure not limited to our DNA. Also, within the glass science community, Professor Emeritus Linn Hobbs of MIT has shared not only a common interest with James in understanding the atomic structure of glass but also his deep knowledge of wine with us as we have crossed paths at various ACerS affiliated meetings around the globe while simultaneously instilling an appreciation of wine in the students of MIT for over three decades through his iconic wine course. Finally, as noted in the Preface and detailed further in Chapter 1, this book is a result of our more than four decades long touring of wineries around the world. No one has been more helpful in this journey than Tim Robertson of Robertson Wine Tours. His friendship and guidance in many of our tours over the past decade are among our most treasured memories.

James F. Shackelford has BS and MS degrees in Ceramic Engineering from the University of Washington and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University in Canada, he joined the University of California, Davis, where he is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He teaches and conducts research in the structural characterization and processing of materials, focusing on glasses and biomaterials. His current focus in teaching is doing so through online technologies. A member of The American Ceramic Society and ASM International, he was named a Fellow of The American Ceramic Society in 1992 and a Fellow of ASM International in 2011; he received the Outstanding Educator Award of The American Ceramic Society in 1996 and will receive the Albert Easton White Distinguished Teaching Award of ASM International in 2019. He has published well over 100 archived papers and books, including Introduction to Materials Science for Engineers now in its 8th Edition and that has been translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Penelope L. Shackelford has a BA degree in English and Philosophy from St. Joseph's College and an MA degree in Arts and Consciousness from the John F. Kennedy University. After careers as a teacher and an art curator and gallery owner, she became a journalist, a role in which she has served as an arts writer for the Davis Enterprise, Artweek, and a variety of national arts publications. She served as Associate Editor for Arts for the journal Multicultural Education. In addition, she has written about winemaking in California, Washington, and New Mexico. She has traveled with James extensively exploring major winemaking regions domestically and around the world. She chronicles these travels in her blog: Travels with Penelope.