Wine glass swirling – left or right? Clockwise or anti-clockwise?

It seems like a silly question at first, but I want to know – which hand do you use to swirl your wine glass? Further, which way do you swirl? Clockwise or anti-clockwise?

Swirl me baby. But which way?

The catalyst for the swirl questions came on Saturday night, when I was told – in no uncertain terms – that apparently women swirl with their left hands and men with their right. 

Given that the original source for this dogma came from respected former Villa Maria winemaker and NZ Winegrowers Frances Durcan – and I’ve never heard of it before/can’t find any studies on it – I now want to find out whether this theory has any merit.

So far the early feedback – based on about 30 odd responses from around the world – suggests that gender plays no part in the swirl question at all, and it is more about your dominant hand. For right hand dominant swirlers it seems anti-clockwise (or swirling away from you) is the most natural choice, whilst left hand swirlers go clockwise. For the ambidextrous freaks out there? Well, you probably swirl both ways.

Of course, if we take embrace this guys theory, we should be choosing our swirl direction based on whether we want to smell fruit or ‘the spice shelf’. I’ll leave you to decide that one…