Some people call them fingers, the French call them tears. What are they, and are they an indicator of quality in wine?

When people swirl a glass of wine and examine how it runs down the side of the glass they are looking at the legs or fingers of the wine. The French refer to this as the wine's tears.

There are those who argue that you can tell the quality of a wine by its legs. Okay, fine. But, what is it?

Legs are based upon the Marangoni effect, the fact that alcohol evaporates faster than water. The alcohol goes up the side of the glass as it evaporates, but since there is a film of water on top, it is pushed up in an arch. Eventually gravity wins, the water's surface tension is broken, and down runs the water, in tears.

Theoretically the more legs, the better the wine. Yet, the needed amount of alcohol necessary to create a difference would push a wine into the fortified wine category. To get to the essence of the debate: Legs really don't have much significance in judging a wine. It's nice to look at and good terms to drop into a wine conversation. Just don't place too much empahsis on legs as an method to evaluate wine.

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