What you drink from matters just as much as what you drink -- and elegant vessels can make perfect gifts.

A well-stocked home bar needs an assortment of highball glasses, cocktail glasses, beer and wine glasses. And that’s just for starters.

Depending on one’s level of involvement with wines, beers and spirits, more specific vessels may be required. “Subtle complexities are lost in bad glassware,” says Kerry Winslow, a wine educator with Carmel Valley’s Windy Oaks.

Sample a Martel VSOP Cognac in the right stemware and your palate is caressed by citrus zest and caramel. From a glass designed for tequila, however, these pleasantries are replaced by a crude, blistering rush of alcohol.

That’s why Riedel and other glassware companies produce sets for different styles of beer or spirits and varietals of wine. A fan of Riesling? There’s a glass for it. Favor bold Cabernets? Yes. They even distinguish between oaked and unoaked Chardonnays and the age of vines growing Zinfandel.

“There’s a dramatic difference,” Winslow notes. “You get the best out of the wine.”

In the 1950s Claus Riedel discovered that the size, shape and lip of a vessel changed one’s perception of a particular wine. Aromas could be captured or lost. Flavors could be spilled from the rim or presented harmoniously.

Over the next several decades the staff at Riedel put glassware under scrutiny – tasting, traveling the world’s growing regions, speaking to winemakers, learning the basics of grape DNA. In 1986, with Georg Riedel at the helm, the company released the first series of varietal-specific wine glasses. They also took on spirits, creating stemware for scotch, tequila and the like.

One of their findings left sparkling wine aficionados stupefied. They had been using the wrong vessel. While flutes may showcase the bubbles, they do little for the flavor. “You’re hiding the wine if you use a flute,” Winslow says.

A complete collection of varietal-specific crystal or glassware for each and every style of beer or spirit may be excessive (and expensive). Two Sauvignon Blanc glasses from Riedel’s Vinum line run $65. A single stem for mature Chardonnay in their Sommelier collection costs $99. Winslow recommends stocking a set for Bordeaux and Burgundy varietals and focusing on your other favorites.

For those more concerned over presentation, he points to hand-blown stemware from Kurt Josef Zalto. “They’re the coolest thing to set on a table. They are super delicate, but they’re not great for every varietal.”