Stemware Strategies

Filed in archive Wine Accessories on April 9, 2007

Pretty much our stemware issues are very similar to our tupperware issues. We have the worst luck with both. When it comes to tupperware, we have a cabinet full of bottoms and tops that don't match and never stay stacked. Opening it is like asking a volcano to erupt or an avalanche to fall. And, now if it's a recycled Cool Whip container, now those we have all the lids to. Wine glasses? If it's nice, it will get broken. If we got it from the dollar store or paid ten cents for it at a flea market, then we have it forever. Too bad because it is true that what you drink wine out can be just as important...or at least close to important...as the wine itself.

From Sip wine in style with best-of-the-best stemware:

Stemware should be appropriately paired with the vintage being served for optimal enjoyment. And the best of the best is Riedel stemware, said Jessica Doller, co-owner of The Seasons restaurant in Grand Chute. "It's the best glass you can serve wine out of."

The Riedel glass company dates back to Bohemia in 1756. Generation after generation of Riedels made their livings as glass cutters, window-makers, creators of fine chandeliers, engravers and bead-makers.

It wasn't until the 1950s that Claus J. Riedel (rhymes with "needle") realized the shape of the glass affects the bouquet and taste of the wine. Claus, the ninth-generation glassmaker, then set out on a quest to shape specific wine glasses to bring out the best features of individual wines.

The first glass was the Burgundy Grand Cru in 1958, said Patrick Ducey of the Left Bank Wine Co., followed by the Bordeaux Grand Cru in 1961. These and others that followed in Riedel's Sommeliers series are all mouth blown.

"It takes a team of five craftspeople to make one glass," Ducey said.