If you’ve been drinking wine for any length of time, you have certainly heard of Riedel Wine Glasses. I first saw these glasses several years ago in the liquor store I now work for, my first impression was, $20 or more for ONE wine glass, are they out of their minds? Then one day I was visiting with my cousin’s husband who at the time was the food and beverage director for a large hotel. He was telling me how the wine tastes different in a better glass, that in his restaurant, he threw out all the “cheap” glasses and purchased “good” glasses. He said it was expensive for him to maintain because of the price of the “good” glasses, but it was worth it.
Well I was skeptical and he knew it, so we did a wine tasting using “cheap” glasses and “good” glasses. I have to say, he was right, the wine was much, much better in his “good” glasses. At the time we didn’t talk about brands, but I’m bettin’ his “good” glasses were Riedel. Before I started drinking wine as I do now, a friend of mine gave my wife and me two Riedel Wine Glasses as Christmas present. I didn’t know the difference at that time and thought it was an extravagant gift, however, I still have them today and I now use them quite frequently.
Riedel has become the designer name in wine glasses. To the wine enthusiast, it’s all the rage to own a set of these glasses, even carry their own glass to the restaurant for dinner (you won’t find me doing that 
). So, I thought it appropriate to report here on my blog about them and give you some info and a place to purchase them. Just be careful giving them as a gift, unless the recipient is an advid wine consumer, it won’t mean much to them. On the other hand, a nice bottle of wine with the appropriate Riedel Wine Glass as a gift to a wine enthusiast, now that’s a homerun.
So, I set out on the internet to find everything I could about Riedel glasses. First I went to their website, wouldn’t you know, it’s a designer snob website. I don’t know why I expected less. You see, I view the internet in 800 x 600 display, I’m starting to get old and the finer resolutions are just too small for me to see. Well, low and behold, I get to the Riedel website and there is a message that says the site was designed for 1024 x 768 and to view the site I would need to change my display settings. WELL! Believe me, if I hadn’t been researching for this post, I most certainly would NOT have changed my display settings for these website snobs, but I went ahead and did it for this post.
The site is very informative, it tells you about each of their collections, price ranges, etc. There is a store finder, I was able to type in my city and state and found the store I work for. Nice site, but the type is too damn small.
So I went about the internet to find more info, I wanted to know more about why these glasses are what they are. I easily found a great article written in 2002 about Riedel. The author, Michael Steinberger, actually did a taste test, kind of like the one my cousin’s husband and I did but a lot more in depth. It’s a great article especially if you want to learn about these glasses. To read it, click on the following link:
Glass Sipper -
Does a 50-buck wine glass buy you better-tasting wine?
If you’re interested in purchasing Riedel Wine Glasses, Wine.com has a full selection. Just click on the following link:
I’ll be talkin’ to ya later!
Tags: wine gift, wine gifts, wine glasses