I received a message from someone who reads this blog:
“Dude, are you drinking tiny bottles of beer or is that wine glass larger than a 750? That damn wine glass looks huge!”
Your eyes do not deceive you. This wine vessel is actually my favorite glass ever. I had one of these a while back but broke it. I then waited about 6 months and bought another one of them. It’s a remarkable experience. Any beer geek will tell you the glassware is important yet scoff when you get a glass that’s absurdly expensive.
This glass has a very large opening and a ton of surface area. It can hold 30 ounces of liquid in the bowl (not that I would ever pour that much beer at once) and it’s made of a lead-crystal material and hand blown in Austria. The stem is very fragile so you have to hand wash it and wash it in a sink with towels on the base of the sink using a mixture of soap and baking soda to preserve the crystal and not accidentally bang it on the edge of the sink. The slightest touch to metal and this thing shatters.
However, while drinking out of it, the experience is heavenly. I LOVE drinking out of this glass and wish it weren’t as fragile but with a lip that’s so thin and a bulb that’s so large, fragile pretty much comes with the territory.
The glass is the Riedel Sommeliers Bordeaux Grand Cru. They actually have a Sommeliers series of glassware for nearly every type of wine.
An explanation of the Sommeliers series via Ridel’s website:
SOMMELIERS (1973): Professor CLAUS J. RIEDEL was the first designer to recognize that the bouquet, taste, balance and finish of lines are affected by the shape of the glass from which they are consumed. More than 50 years ago he began his pioneeringwork to create stemware that would match and complement different wines and spirits. In the late 1950s, RIEDEL started to produce glasses which at that time were a design revolution. Thin-blown, unadorned, reducing the design to its essence: bowl, stem, base. Working with experienced tasters, RIEDEL discovered that wine enjoyed from his glasses showed more depth and better balance than when served in other glasses. CLAUS J. RIEDEL laid the groundwork for stemware which was functional as well as beautiful, and made according to the Bauhaus design principle: form follows function. In 1961a revolutionary concept was introduced, when the Riedel catalogue featured the first line of wine glasses created in different sizes and shapes. Before this, conventional stemware had used a single basic bowl shape, with only the size varying depending on use. The concept was illustrated to perfection with the introduction of the Sommeliers series in 1973, which achieved worldwide recognition. A glass was born that turns a sip into a celebration -a wine’s best friend – fine-tuned to match the grape! We invite you to share this fascinating and unique experience. You don’t need to be a wine writer, a wine maker or an expert to taste the difference that a RIEDEL glass can make. SOMMELIERS is executed in lead crystal, mouth blown in Austria.
I absolutely adore using this glass. You can purchase it via Amazon.com but I insist on finding it at a local premium wine shoppe or asking that they order it for you. The reason is that this glass often breaks in shipping and a lot of online customers complain about this. Getting it at a shop and having them open the box up to show the safe contents is a nice way to ensure you don’t get a broken glass upon arrival.