For more than a couple of years I have been looking for the right champagne glass. In reading here and other wine blogs saw that Zalto Universal glasses were gaining in popularity when serving Champagne. During this years Berserker I pulled the trigger and ordered them. For the first time use my son had just arrived, after a job in Japan for over a year, I decided the new stemware was perfect for the occasion. I was a little disappointed that the bubbles just didn’t show. The Champagne was good, Tattinger CdC. Am I being too picky or just used to seeing bubbles in flutes? I love the weight and feel of the glasses. My son thought they were great for Champagne when served at a meal but not so much for toasting. I plan on keeping them but feel the search is not over for some new Champagne stems.
Michael, there is a Gabriel Glas thread on here Buzz started recently. Those of us with them (yes, I sell them, but bias aside) feel strongly that they are an ideal bubbles glass. PM me…if you want to eat the shipping ($10?) I’ll send you one to try for while. Don’t like it? send it back. But, unlike the ZU, the GG has a little bit of an “ass” on it and I think it allows for solid opening of the wine while the chimney is equally focused like the Universal and helps carry aromatics to the nose and mouth. and no more of the silly, tip my head 180 degrees to drink the last of the wine like you do in a flute.
His complaint isn’t about the taste or the nose. It’s about the physical appearance of bubbles. Going Gabriel glas would make the bubbles lessen as it has an even wider base than the zalto universal.
FWIW, I absolutely loathe and detest champagne flutes. It sounds like you enjoy using them and somehow we’re expecting these wide bottomed glasses to somehow behave like a flute. I think this may be much more about your preconceived expectations for these glasses and less about their actual performance.
For me, the flute preserves the bubbles and closes off the nose so that it excentuates the bubbles themselves rather than the smell and flavor of the wine. To me, flutes make champagne taste like alka seltzer. So I want a glass that does the opposite and accentuates the wine and minimizes the bubbles. I know that the bubbles themselves are the reason why many (most?) people like champagne but I find the bubbles distracting if they are all I can’t taste.
I need more coffee and will now go kill myself.
Lightly scratch the inside of the bottom of the glass.
LOL. I snorted
We have some Riedel flutes we use when the primary goal is a fun toast rather than enjoying a great Champagne. IMHO that’s totally valid at times, and the flutes do feel more traditionally “festive” to a lot of people. But we typically don’t use a top-tier Champagne for those occasions because I agree that the wine doesn’t show as well as it does in a better glass.
If the bubbles are a large part of your enjoyment of the wine, then you really need to find a flute that suits, or one of the longer/narrower range of glasses out there (e.g., the Zalto champagne glass). The bubbles will never show as well in a Zalto universal as in a flute.
I drank most of my champagne in prior years in the universal and loved it. I bought a couple of Zalto champagne glasses from Chris and love them even more. YMMV
Agreed - if bubbles are a big part, then stick with flutes. The trend towards more mainstream shapes is more about showcasing the aromas more.
I have been all over the place on this issue. First flutes, then briefly the Zalto Universal, then a small white wine glass. Now I am back to the Riedel flute. I missed the bubbles! The Riedel does feel clunky…I have not had Champagne from a Zalto flute. I’ll have to check it out. Have not had any wines from the Gabriels, though people here are seeming to love them. 
I put all of my wine glasses in my Miele dishwasher. With my well water, handwashing leaves too much spotting. The salt water softener of the Miele leaves them perfect, although all my glassware clouds up over time.
U can just pour a 400ml pour into the zalto and still see bubbles!! 
Bingo. The Zalto is just too smooth for the bubbles to form. FWIW, I would never drink good Champagne out of a flute.
Zalto does make a champagne flute if you want to see bubbles but they don’t have much room for swirling. You could also try one of their white wine glasses.
Riedel Veritas champagne does allow some bubbles while having more of a white wine glass shape. Also try the Lehmann Jamesse champagne glass for a good hybrid.
Avoid flutes!
Agreed - if bubbles are a big part, then stick with flutes. The trend towards more mainstream shapes is more about showcasing the aromas more.
Not quite sure that’s even true, although it’s a claim. I think it’s really about people wanting to be a little more avant and therefore announcing that they wouldn’t drink from a flute, something that became quite trendy over the past few years. Many people think the flutes are perfectly adequate. A narrow opening focuses the aromas more than a wide one, and it’s hard to beat a flute for that. I think the OP should just go back to the flutes if that’s what he liked in the first place.
Over a decade or so ago, I performed many side by side taste tests of Champagnes of various ages in a number of different glasses next to flutes.
Flutes were last almost every time both for aroma and taste. I haven’t drunk from a flute since.
For me, I just started drinking wine seriously six months ago and don’t own flutes (starting from scratch), so got used to drinking from a regular glass since that’s all I had. When I tried a flute, I hated it. You also cannot swirl the wine from a flute generally. There is no bowl to collect aromas. Imagine drinking wine from a shot glass.
I am a novice but besides preserving and seeing effervescence I cannot see the advantage of flutes.
The hybrid glasses are interesting for that reason, you get some advantages of both. But do I really want yet another glass in my cupboard…?
I use Zalto white for champagne and it’s perfect.
I use Burg-type bowls for all sparklers. The enjoyment of the wine is far more important than how “bubbly” it is. Even if the CO2 dissipates more quickly, the wine will retain enough of its effervescence to be enjoyable.