Catar Vinos while surfing or challenging Cristiano Ronaldo: thus carries Maximilian Riedel the tradition of the glass to Instagram

For the glass to claim its place in the modern world there is nothing more effective than an Instagrammer. This has been demonstrated by Maximilian Riedel (Vienna, 47 years old), the CEO of the glassware that has been named after 11 generations and that has become one of the most prestigious glasses manufacturers in the market. As Hermes did, the messenger who saved Dionysus's life, the god of ecstasy and wine, Riedel has become an emissary of a tradition that for 2,000 years defends that the glass is done with his hands and not in industrial culture fields. Riedel has shown that he has what to give the battle. More than 570,000 followers accompany him every week in adventures ranging from Qatar a wine while practicing Surf to challenging Cristiano Ronaldo to lift – with precise football skill – a glass from his foot to his hand. In their social networks, the glasses are used to taste truffles or unfortunate bottles with an elegant salary. However, the sacred mission of the crystal that Riedel creates is unmistakable: serving as a chalice to drink the best wines in the world. «I was lucky to find on Instagram how to better communicate my business and my passion,» Riedel confesses to El País from Kufstein (Austria). It was in this city where his grandfather – «The man who changed the world of wine» – invented in 1958 the first Egg Shaped Cup. With it, it modernized the way in which the millenary drink is drink. Until then, he remembers – diners drank from cups and vessels. Riedel looks excited, with a spicy smile and otherwise, didactics. He continues that the same transformative spirit was his father, who warned the differences of drinking the same variety of grapes in different glasses. This was the goal of a learning process in which he had the example of great wine names, such as Angelo Gaja, Robert Mondavi and Robert Parker.— My father had passion for red wine. So he took a Pinot Noir, served him in different glasses and, when he tested it, he realized that he knew differently. That I knew better. The diversity of glasses is the distinctive feature of the company that directs: the company manufactures a specific glass for each grape variety – as the Malbec or the Merlot – or for each denomination of origin – as Bordeaux, Ribera del Duero or Rioja. Only on its website, Riedel offers glasses for 56 different strains. And before the question of whether a drink designed for each variety makes the difference when drinking it, Riedel responds safely that people have to try it to see the difference.Maximilien Riedel, in a photograph provided by the brand. Riedel Glaseste is the gospel of this modern Hermes: «The only way for people to experience it is having the same wine in different glasses.» The fruit of the vine must drink with the dignity that corresponds to it, and Riedel preaches it when he assures that he prefers to drink a beer directly from the bottle before «drinking bad wine from a plastic glass.» Although he acknowledges – between laughs – that “we have all had errors in our life.” I couldn't drink wine in 'This' [levanta una especie de florero que decora su oficina]because I would never know in the way I should know. Riedel's confidence is based on a life dedicated to viniculture. It has grown together with the family business. At age 12 he first entered the factory, after his father gave him to choose between improving his qualifications at school or going to work in Riedel. He attended the workshop for a week, starting his day at 5 in the morning along with the other workers. After seven days in such an exhausting task, he reconsidered his bet and chose to become «the best student» in school. Between 14 and 16 he was responsible for the wine service in his house, and that was when he tested his first wine: a d'Asti moscato, a sweet wine of low alcoholic graduation that “was very popular in the seventies.” – Each cup changes the wine tremendously. You can talk everything you want. No one will believe you until it tries it and it is the wine to speak to its senses. That is our secret.Maximilien Riedel in a ceded photograph. Riedel Glases for this reason that he dedicates hours to his followers on Instagram. He wants them to share with him his passion for wine and glass. The CEO of a company that sells its products in more than 100 countries takes the time to read and respond personally to each of the comments that people leave in their videos. For Riedel, communication with his clients is fundamental, and he feels «grateful to be able to talk to them without borders»: «I need the feedback of the people,» he says. This is the same criterion that seems to govern their consumption of wine, always better «when you share it with a person you respect, with a person you love.» In fact, this is the reason why he almost does not open the Spanish «old treasures» that he keeps in his winery, where some bottles have wait since 1950 to be open: “I need friends who speak Spanish to appreciate with them the wines of Spain,” he highlights. For Riedel, Spanish wines are “beautiful”. He describes them as «structured», so much that they are not «accessible» when they are young. Riedel is, as his biography of Instagram says, a lover of old wines. He has had the privilege of drinking wines over 100 years in one of the Premier Grand Cru de Bordeaux: Château Latour. It is one of the best memories he keeps, of those who showed him that «the wine can be immortal.» Maximilian Riedel seems to give life to one of the maximum of Nélida Piñón. The Brazilian writer used to say that «you can't be modern without being archaic.» This is the winning combination of this modern Hermes: as a victorious Instagrammer, he has managed to defend the wine with the ancient techniques that 2,000 years have read.