A spiffy new camera set-up devised by scientists in Japan indicates that glass shape–just like the wine snobs have been telling us all along–affects the flavor of wine.

In a recent study, Kohji Mitsubayashi and colleagues at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University topped wine-filled glasses with a mesh impregnated with alcohol oxidase, an enzyme that converts alcohols and oxygen into aldehydes and hydrogen peroxide. Also added to the mesh were horseradish peroxide and luminol – the kicky chemical that makes bloodstains glow blue at crime scenes. Together, these produce a color change in response to hydrogen peroxide.

All this chemical interplay enables a camera, peering down at the mesh-covered glass, to map the concentration distribution of ethanol vapor rising