The rivulets of wine that roll down the inside of the glass after a wine has been swirled are called legs in America and in Britain. The Spanish call them tears; the Germans, church windows. Some wine drinkers look for great legs, falsely believing that nicely shaped legs (and who knows what that means?) portend great flavor. In fact, legs are a complex phenomenon related to the rate at which liquids evaporate and the differences in surface tension between water and the wine's alcohol content. Legs have nothing to do with greatness.*With wine, as with women, there is very little meaningful information one can deduce by looking at the legs.
