Plastic cup or Polystyrene Cup?

Riedel or Libbey? Spiegelau or Luminarc? Stem or tumbler? Or how about colored crystal stemware elaborately cut and handed down from your grandmother? What is the proper wineglass?

How about plastic cup or Polystyrene? (Tangent: there's no such thing as a styrofoam cup, but Polystyrene is what we commonly call a styrofoam cup. For the tangentally inclined, read more here.)

I've enjoyed many wines served in a tumbler at pasta palaces and find nothing objectionable about the practice except the pretentiousness that we have much in common with Italian peasantry. But then pretentiousness are us in the wine business, so hard to get excited.

No, what separates the cork dork from the wine drinker is that unavoidable occasion where nothing that could technically be called "glass" is available. Think small town motel with in-room coffee maker, Polystrene cups stacked up beside it. Plastic cups in the bathroom, nicely shrink-wrapped. It's Sunday and not a store that sells glassware is open. You have not brought your travel box of Riedel. What do you do? What do you do?

Do you refuse to open the bottle because it would be unfair to the wine? Because without the proper stemware, it would lessen your enjoyment to the point of pointlessness? Congrats, you are a dork.

It's only a bottle of wine, for Christsake. (See Post # 1, "It's Only a Bottle of Wine.") And, if you brought any wine that couldn't stand the vibrations of a road trip, congrats, you are a dork.

No, for the wine drinker, the question wouldn't be whether to open the bottle. It would be "Plastic Cup or Polystyrene Cup?"

Okay, so the answer is obvious, if you are tangentally inclined and read more here or up there.
Alcohol will increase the styrene migration from the cup into the wine, so the plastic cup wins out.

Wine is for drinking.

Thanks,
Jim