Recommendations for glasses

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
I need to refresh my stock of glasses at home. I currently have a number of Riedel stems, mostly the ovoid N. Rhone/Barolo shape, a pile of straight-sided cabernet sauvignon glasses, a couple old Burgundy bowls, one Zwiesel Universal glass and a few Spiegelau white wine glasses. They're decent stems but nothing here is an over-achiever.

What do you use? And for which wines?
 
I know they seem a bit silly, but I really love the Conterno Sensory glasses for red wine. For whites, I use Zalto Bordeaux glasses (which are my more-or-less universal glasses). I have a box of Zalto Burgundy glasses rotting in a closet. I don't know why, but I hate them.

I used to love the Riedel N. Rhone glasses but they don't make them anymore.
 
For whites and non-aromatic reds I use legacy Riedel Syrah(/Sagiovese?) glasses that survived 20 years of child rearing. For aromatic reds I use a Zalto Burgundy glass just to annoy VLM.

Honestly, we could probably get rid of many of the glasses we own. I don’t imagine we’ll ever use those Riedel Bordeaux tubs again, and we could save beaucoup cabinet space by ditching them. The Schott-Zweisel Tritan glasses are good for large parties with people who get careless, but we don’t have many of those any more.

Mark Lipton
(Hooray for CRLFs!)
 
MLipton said:
For whites and non-aromatic reds I use legacy Riedel Syrah(/Sagiovese?) glasses that survived 20 years of child rearing. For aromatic reds I use a Zalto Burgundy glass just to annoy VLM.
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Ha! I don't have a good reason to not like them, I just felt like wine didn't show as well in them and the equally silly Sensory glasses seem to give wines a great chance of showing well. Not exactly scientific.
 
VLM said:
Ha! I don't have a good reason to not like them, I just felt like wine didn't show as well in them and the equally silly Sensory glasses seem to give wines a great chance of showing well. Not exactly scientific.
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Speaking of science: big news hereabouts- got a 20 nM dual inhibitor that reverses HIV latency while completely suppressing cell-to-cell transmission in cell culture. Going into humanized mice in the next few months.
 
Most of the glasses I own have been accumulated from others who died/didn’t want them/were moving or gave them as gifts. None are thick glass, all have stems and they all seem to work. Little ones for white, big ones for red; mostly.
‘Last of the big time spenders.
 
I have a very mixed assemblage of Riedel stems, and like Jim, I use big ones for red, little ones for white. And frankly, I no longer remember which are for Rhones, which for young Red Burgundy, old Red Burgundy, California Cabs, or Manischewitz Cream Concord White (with apologies to Elaine May for stealing one of her best routines.)
 
biggest loss is that Riedel Riesling/Chianti glass, occasionally dubbed Riesling/Zinfandel, appears to have been discontinued in the past couple of years. Incidentally, SFJoe's default "house" stemware.
 
I use Glasvin. However, I've been able to get a 50% discount when a friend orders. He knows the owner.

For outdoors and folks who aren't comfortable using those, I have a dozen Riedel restaurant red stems. These are not Overture, they have a larger bowl. There's a local store (Artisan Wines) that occasionally has a sale on them. $60/dozen (I think more now). I bring those when I attend jeebuses, especially at Chinese restaurants and the group is sitting at a round table with a lazy susan. I haven't broken a glass yet, but there have been a couple of close calls. Also, around a dozen Ridge Vineyards stems from the time (pre-pandemic) when they'd give those as a freebie at the Monte Bello Compenent/Assemblage tasting events. Again, those are used as outdoor/picnic glasses.
 
Larry Stein said:
I bring those when I attend jeebuses, especially at Chinese restaurants and the group is sitting at a round table with a lazy susan. I haven't broken a glass yet, but there have been a couple of close calls.
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Whereas when I go to a Chinese restaurant with a lazy susan I sometimes accidentally take home one of their glasses and leave mine behind. (Yes, Jay Miller picks the restaurants so they offer a decent grade of house glass and, yes, I know I did it because Santa once gave me a set of four monogrammed universal-ish glasses and I'm down to one.)
 
Jeff Grossman said:
This one?: https://www.wiredforwine.com/products/riedel-vinum-series-riesling-set-of-2-6416-15
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Huh. The specs look correct. Right height and volume is close enough ( 13 vs 14 ou, but perhaps I should not fill it all the way to the top? ). I thought this model all but disappeared particularly when I had walked into the now defunct BBB and found an entirely different glass (taller, different balance/overall shape) labelled as 'grand cru riesling' but perhaps it was a misidentified Veritas(*) version.
I could not find the glass on Riedel's website a couple of years ago either, but this confirms existence:
https://www.riedel.com/en-us/shop/vinum/riesling-grand-cru-zinfandel-641600015
(*)Re Veritas collection, the Bordeaux version is taller than the Vinum but equally functional while a touch more elegant. I've compared them side by side. Incidentally, when it comes to Bordeaux I have tried all sorts of stemware but have always stayed with Riedel. I suppose drinking as much Bordeaux for as long as I have has pros and cons, once you pile up so many reference points with the same glass.
 
I like this thread and been meaning to post something similar.

Like many here we have a pretty random assortment. I tend to get attached to glasses that are a little scruffy and maybe bought on the road somewhere. For the longest time the Mme and I had these two chunky French crystal glasses we bought in a little hardware store in the boonies of the Loire. They had a flared mouth which is nice. They are both long gone sadly. My favorite glass these days strangely is this scrawny white Speigelau I picked up somewhere. Lots of our glasses have scuffs which I like as a sort of patina. We do have a couple of the Sensory glasses and like VLM we are fans, they really are great and bring out a lot...we use them all the time actually. The old Tritan SZs were great and agree they seem to have disappeared unfortunately. We still have several flared mouth large red glasses that are good allrounders.
 
Pavel Tchichikov said:
Huh. The specs look correct. Right height and volume is close enough ( 13 vs 14 ou, but perhaps I should not fill it all the way to the top? ). I thought this model all but disappeared particularly when I had walked into the now defunct BBB and found an entirely different glass (taller, different balance/overall shape) labelled as 'grand cru riesling' but perhaps it was a misidentified Veritas(*) version.
I could not find the glass on Riedel's website a couple of years ago either, but this confirms existence:
https://www.riedel.com/en-us/shop/vinum/riesling-grand-cru-zinfandel-641600015
(*)Re Veritas collection, the Bordeaux version is taller than the Vinum but equally functional while a touch more elegant. I've compared them side by side. Incidentally, when it comes to Bordeaux I have tried all sorts of stemware but have always stayed with Riedel. I suppose drinking as much Bordeaux for as long as I have has pros and cons, once you pile up so many reference points with the same glass.
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I know it's to keep wringing dollars out of us but, honestly, a search for a riesling glass on the Riedel site shows the one above, plus Extreme, Veloce, Performance, Veritas, Fatto A Mano, Sommelier, Manufaktur Vitis, and Heart to Heart glasses.

After all that, I'm reaching for a rocks glass.
 
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BJ said:
I tend to get attached to glasses that are a little scruffy and maybe bought on the road somewhere.
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Thanks for reminding me! One week, when I was at a customer site and the hotel had nothing good to drink from, I went to the local wine store (Westside Wines and Spirits, in West Hartford) and bought a glass. It has no maker name on it, just a little tag that says, "handmade / fait a la main / hecho a mano" on it. I kept the original packing - that's how I still know the store name - and that glass has traveled in my suitcase with me for many a year.

It's shorter than a Spiegelau white wine glass, though I think the bowl is bigger.

Anyway, now that I am not traveling to customers any more, I shall finally toss the packaging and place it on the shelf with its kinfolk.

And, yes, I did just have to go open my suitcase to get it.
 
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