I just picked up a pair of Riedel Vinum Bordeaux glasses from Bed, Bath & Beyond (was in the area). Good price (for Riedel glass…didn’t have Spiegelau nor Schott Zwiesel). Compared them to my ultra cheap supermarket brand (PC…President’s Choice…for the Loblaws supermarket chain). Only noticeable difference was weight and the sound if the “BING” when you tapped the side of the glass. The Ridel sound had “mid-range” and the sound lingered longer (or so it seemed). Whereas the cheap glass had a bright sounding BING. Is it mostly just marketing? Import “fee” for having them shipped from Germany?
You can buy a box of 6 SZ Forte Bordeaux glasses for $101.99 CAD (approx $16 each). I got the 2 Riedel Vinum for $60.00 CAD ($30 each). The supermarket brand $16.99 CAD for 4 (a little over $4 per…use for entertaining…or that was the idea…I use them normally too…also have a set of 4 for white wine)
Do you guys think it’s worth it to buy brand names from Germany? Austria? I suppose the Spiegelau and SZ would survive more accidents (e,g. being knocked over on a granite counter or wood table). I’ll probably still endup buying a load of SZ glass when I return from LA next year.
My go to glasses are Reidel Restuarant series. You can get them here and there but you usually need to buy a box (12) at a time. However, they’re $5-7 per glass and I don’t noticed a difference between them and the Vinum series aside from the slightly thicker stem. Shape, size and bowl thickness seem identical to me. I picked up a dozen of the Chianti/Riesling stems and split a box of the Burg stems with a friend.
I have Riedel and Spiegelau sets, but for everyday use I’ve been picking up Schott Zwiesel Tritan for about $6/per.
They feel right and are much more sturdy.
+1 Lori and I used these for years when we lived in Detroit (and had a connection in the restaurant business to buy them cheap). You can sometime notice a flaw, like a burr on the stem, that would cause you to return something priced like Vinum but for how cheap these are, who cares. They are otherwise aesthetically equivalent to Riedel Overture which is a very nice glass, and functionally equivalent to Vinum if maybe a little less elegant.
Lately we’ve been using the Schott Zwiesel Tritan on the recommendation of a friend who owns a local wine bar. It’s difficult to say if the Tritan is really more break resistant but I really like the aesthetics on these glasses and they’re reasonably priced. We also own a set of Vinum Port stems.
There may be something to Riedel’s different bowl for every variety, but IMO that’s 99% marketing, and a clever way to get you to buy more stems. For practical purposes you want a glass (a) with a stem, so your hand doesn’t warm the wine; (b) with a good deep bowl, so you can easily swirl; (c) without embellishments or color, so you can easily see the wine, and (d) with a very thin rim, which I guess is mostly aesthetic, but once you’re used to it rolled edges will seem very cheap & crappy.
Bottom line, you want a nice glass but not one you’ll be upset over breaking. You will eventually break crystal, which is an event that should be celebrated.
At the tasting room, we use Riedel restaurant series Oregon pinot noir glasses and I have a couple at home. I’m hard pressed to find any substantive difference between those and the Vinums and with the price differential they’re an easy decision.
Of course, now that I’ve said that all the rest of my stems are Schott-Zwiesel Forte Tritans. I’ve never broken one.
There’s maybe something to it, but I believe not to the extent Riedel would like you to think. Clearly, drink a good red wine out of a quality glass vs. a hotel water glass and you’ll see a clear difference, mostly due to the bowl allowing swirling to release aromas, and tapered edges to concentrate them.
Riedel wants you to believe every bowl is optimized to the variety, but in my mind that statement falls down when you compare Overture to Vinum to Sommelier series, which I’d think would share the optimum bowl shape, and differentiate on levels of craftsmanship, but for some reason that’s not the case. So if Sommelier is more optimized, but I’m simply not going to spend that much on a stem, then what’s the advantage of the Vinum series again? Anyway… I think the Sommelier series shows a stunning elegance and are aesthetic masterpieces, and that’s worth money for those who wish to spend it there, but I’m not convinced of a real functional difference. Plus I know how pissed I’d be if me or my wife broke one. Like I say, it’s in my mindset to celebrate a broken wine glass as the sign of a life well-lived
Do you use different shapes for different wines?
We do, but only differentiate on red/white/sparkling/port. For reds we use SZ Forté Tritan and a few Riedel Restaurant series still hanging around, for whites mostly Riedel Overture Red Wine (and/or a mix of any half-decent logo glasses we may have laying around), for sparlking a mix of (discontinued) Riedel Overture and some other cheap stems. For Ports we use Riedel Vinum Port.
Thanks again Larry (and Bob too!). I’m partly motivated by someone I know who drinks $20 wines out of $200 glasses. Never really looked into it very closely, but my sense is that up to a point the glass matters, but many people make far too much of it. Not that you didn’t know that…
I’m in the all-Riedel camp – 13 varieties of Vinum and 10 of Sommelier. For decent wines (above $10, say) I have not found any Vinum or Sommelier glass that is not distinctively better than it’s competition. (I’ve compared Riedel directly against Bacarrat, Eisch, Mikasa, Schott and Spiegelau, as well as Vinum against Sommelier.)
The Sommelier Hermitage, Sauterne and Riesling/Chianti are exemplary, as is the Chardonnay glass for old Bordeaux. And guests can’t believe what the water glasses do.
I don’t think it’s hype, because my wife and I had particular glasses for particular wines for over ten years before encoutering Riedels. I even brought our favorites to the tasting when Georg Riedel came to Hawaii twenty years ago. (Ours were embarrassed; we walked home $900 lighter.)
Whether they lived in Cambridge, Guerneville, Honolulu, Auckland or Yokohama, whenever I have poured friends the same wine out of some other glass into a Reidel, they have been amazed at the difference – especially when they pour the wine from the Riedel back into the original glass (which shows that it’s not just aeration).
And as far as breakage is concerned, simple: Don’t wash the glasses until the next day.
I don’t think I buy into the “1 type of glass for a particular type of wine”. Are we to buy a different glass for each type of red, for each type of white? Would drinking some Chablis in a “white wine” labelled glass make a difference? One large “white wine glass” should do for all white wines. As long as we buy the right shape to begin with (e.g. big round bowl w/ narrowing mouth for reds like Bordeaux’s, Malbecs, etc…using a Bordeaux glass). Should cover all other reds. Same for white wines.
Perhaps a champagne flute (for the desired effects) and a martini glass (though I’m sure you could use any type of glass for martini’s…won’t affect the taste…just won’t look “right”). But that’s it IMHO. Just don’t drink old Burgs in a chablis glass.
As for build quality…I can’t really comment as I haven’t owned many brands over the years. Just have been using my ultra cheap supermarket brands. Haven’t broken any of them yet incidentally. But I’m sure they will fail the “break resistance test” (e.g. being knocked over on a hard surface). Dread that day when the shards fly all over my kitchen and have to find every minute piece. I own a dog.
As I said. I’ll probably end up with sets of Schott Zwiesel stemware. More Bordeaux, white wine, champagne flutes, martini glass…maybe a Bourg glass for the hell of it. Though I’m assuming I can use a Bordeaux glass no? Would an old Bourg not benefit for a little swirling in the glass? As would a young Bourg…Am I wrong?
My Schott Zwiesels are worth it to me 'cuz they’re aesthetically pleasing, have a nice feel to them when you hold them, hardly ever break, and are way cheaper than Riedel. I’ve never bought Riedel and never will. It used to be you had to buy Riedel or Spiegelau if you didn’t want to use cheap thick-glassed goblets. But these days, there are a lot of cheap brands that have designs very similar to the standard Riedel/Spiegelau/Schott designs for as cheap as $3-$4 a stem. No reason not to buy those if you like them.
My standard glasses are Schott Zwiesels Forte line. I’ll use the Burgundy glass size for all red wines. For nicer occasions, I bring out the larger “Claret” line which are jumbo sized.
I don’t buy into the Riedel marketing of having a “scientifically proven” shape/size glass for each varietal.
Exactly Keith. The cheap glass I started with are the exact same design/shape as those found in the Riedel product lines. You’d have to really look at the seams and pick up the glass to notice a difference.
Having said that…if buying SZ or Spiegelau glass will lessen the chances of glass shards “exploding” all over the kitchen…why not spend the extra $10 plus… I just won’t spend $140 on a Riedel Sommelier Bordeaux Grand Cru glass. There are limits. Imagine accidentally knocking that glass to the floor and seeing it smash to microscopic pieces…
As I said. I’ll probably end up buying a boat load of SZ glass with a mix of Eisch, Riedel, etc. decanters. Will be interesting to see what I have in 10-20 years.
Unless tasters are tasting completely blindfolded, so they don’t know which glass is being used at the moment, I don’t buy any “experiment” or result.
Does that mean I’m going to serve my wines out of a red Solo cup? No. I do derive some aesthetic enjoyment from using nice stemware such as SZ Claret, but I’m not going to attribute better aromas/taste to a specific glass.
Spiegelau glasses aren’t significantly less prone to breakage than Riedel - they’re both very thin lead crystal and not in the same league as Schott-Zwiesel. What makes the Schotts so durable is the titanium crystal. That said, some of the Schott lines are much more durable than others. The top-of-the-line handblown Schott-Zwiesels which are intended to compete with the Riedel Sommelier series (beautiful glasses, by the way) are the most vulnerable, and the only line Schott doesn’t advertise as dishwasher-safe. (Although we’ve washed them in the dishwasher often and they come out fine.) I’ve only broken two in the five or so years since I bought them, and they’re a fraction of the price of the Sommeliers.
Once I drank from Zalto, there was no turning back. I really love these glasses. I used to buy into the notion that every grape needed a special glass …not anymore. The Denk’Art Bordeaux for Riesling and some Bordeaux and the Denk’Art Burgundy for Burgundy and some Riesling. I still use the Riedel Som Burgundy for some Burgundies.
I definitely think different wines show better out of different glasses. For burgundy & beaujolais, some show best from riedel burgundy vinum/restaurant, some show best from Peugeot Impitoyables “mature red wine”, and a very few show best from the riedel sommelier. I like my vinum syrahs for most reds with more structure, but some of the mature ones show best from one of the previous 3 glasses. I like my mature chablis from the mature red wine glass or the vinum burgundy. It’s really a case by case thing.
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