My first wine glasses were a comfortably durable set of short, squat goblets from World Market, bought for less than $2 apiece. They were good for everyday drinking and I didn't worry too much about breaking them. But then I was introduced to incredibly thin, delicate glasses at a friend's house, and I was smitten.
Good Product: Nora Wine Glasses
Even though I am not too fussy about the shape of a wine glass, I did find that I really enjoyed the delicacy and thin lip of a well-made, more expensive glass. So when I got married last year, nice wine glasses were one of the few things we registered for.
We initially looked at the Riedel glasses, which have a wonderful feel to them, but they seemed a little too expensive. The cheaper versions of the Riedels weren't available at our registry, and so we ended up with these Nora glasses from Crate&Barrel. They are still not inexpensive, at about $10 apiece, but they're not astronomically expensive either.
We love their classic shape, and the incredibly thin, delicate glass. They almost feel like they are taut, stretched thin and ready to vibrate. And yet they have proved to be very durable. They don't feel like they are going to just shatter in the hand, and the only one that's been broken so far fell from a height of about six feet!
I am not so refined in my wine-tasting skills (yet) to notice much of a difference between the two varieties of glasses, other than size, but we did get a selection of both the red and white glasses. The red wine glasses are slightly larger, and they each hold 15 ounces. The white wine glasses are smaller and more narrow; they hold 12 ounces.
They are quite beautiful, and we use them nearly every day. Highly recommended.
Do you have a favorite sort of wine glass? What do you use? For really informal occasions we do skip these entirely and just drink wine out of glass Duralex tumblers - which have their own charm.
• Buy them: Nora Wine Glasses, $9.95 apiece at Crate & Barrel
Related: Riedel Vivant Wine Glasses
(Images: Faith Durand; Crate & Barrel)
Comments (7)
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I like (or liked) have nice wine glasses that my partner's mother gave me for xmas in 2007 - 6 each of red, wine, martini, and champagne flutes. 24 glasses at $18-20 a pop. Like the ones above, they were so thin and delicate looking.
I now have only 2 red wine glasses, 6 champagne flutes (because I don't use them), 1 martini glass, 0 white wine glasses.
For myself, I'll stick with wine glasses from ikea or Crate and Barrel outlet specials.
view justveggingout's profile
Come on it's whats inside that counts (and that goes for wine glasses too!)
Marshals, TJ maxx, etc tend to have an abundance of mix-matched wine glasses; but for a big party, I think a table full of matching wine glasses looks great and the only place for cheap (and matching) glasses is ikea. I can replace any glass, at any time, and I know they'll match. Granted they're not the nice oversized thinned glasses, but when it breaks (and it will) I can grab another and not think twice.
view matt manfredini's profile
I usually buy at restaurant supply houses, but Crate and Barrel had a good sale at Christmas, and I stocked up. These pictured look nice, but I wouldn't buy a $10 for everyday.
view FantasticMrFaux's profile
I drink nearly all of my beverages from a Bodum double-wall insulated red wine glass, which I bought at $40/pair. Love these! They're my favorites because of the temperature retention and the floating liquid/glass-within-a-glass illusion.
view EasilyAmused's profile
I'm with easily amused. As our glasses break they will be replaced with the bodum double-walled glasses (already our teacups are) and with candlewick that I inherited.
I do like the shape of the ones you registered for, though. Very sleek and pretty. If only I had the space...
http://embritadesign.blogspot.com
view EmmieB's profile
We have these glasses and absolutely love them! Great for swirling and opening up the wine.
We also have a dozen of some cheaper BB&B ones that we use for large groups or when we don't feel like handwashing.
view ramaxwell's profile
I'm a huge fan of the thin lip, and have arrived at the point where I enjoy wine less from a thicker rimmed glass. However, I also find it painful to spend money on glasses that could break easily. Like silver that needs polishing, I'd never use them.
Just before Christmas, I hosted a cocktail party for 30 people, and went back and forth trying to decide what to do for wine glasses. Rent some? Buy a stash from IKEA? Use a bunch of random glasses? On a whim, I stopped by a Christmas Tree Shop one day (which I'm not typically a big fan of), and hit the jackpot. Spiegelau glasses (owned by Riedel) at $1.99 a pop. Armed with a few 20% off entire purchase coupons, I hit up three stores and now have a total of 33 very thin rimmed glasses for a total of $52.47. At $1.59 each, I wasn't concerned if any broke (though none have so far), plus because they're crystal (as opposed to glass), they're much stronger and have a great weight to them. The best of both worlds!
view ssharp's profile