Wine snobs love to hold their glasses up to the light, wrinkle their noses, tilt their glasses and cock their heads, and expound upon the "legs" or "tears" running down the side of the glass. They claim the legs are indicative of the body, quality, or glycerin content of a wine. Nonsense.
When you swirl a wine you coat the glass with liquid. As it slides down the side from gravity, the alcohol, which evaporates faster than other liquids runs up. The upward movement of the alcohol pushes the liquid back up until gravity takes over and the water starts to bead and slide back down in the droplets called "legs" or "tears". This is called the Marangoni effect and it has little to do with glycerin.
Try this experiment: Pour about an ounce of water in a wine glass. Swirl it to coat the sides. Pour some vodka or whiskey into the center of the water, perhaps 1/4 of an ounce. Watch the alcohol run up the sides and form legs.
Now try this experiment: Pour a glass of wine and swirl it and observe the legs. Now cover the class with a piece of cardboard and swirl again and again. Before long the legs will stop forming because the atmosphere is saturated with alcohol.
Since the "body" of a wine, it's apparent weight and thickness to the taster, is affected by alcohol, one might think that looking at legs will tell us something about the body, but that's unlikely since body is dependant on so many other things, such as suspended solids, sugars, glycerol and other compounds. Leg formation may also be related to the microscopic surface of the glass and residual soap or sheeting agents.
In other words, looking at legs is an entertaining diversion while imbibing, like looking at a lava lamp, but it is not very informative. When people tell me a wine has great legs, I tell them "Personally, I prefer its ass."
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Luke Williams
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