Shopping for wine glasses and cutlery -- Need your advice.

[Claire]

You all seem to enjoy a good related story. One day hubby and I were at the home of our favorite wine snob. We loved his wife, and enjoyed him (especially his wine/food pairings ... he may have been a snob, but he did noticeably know his stuff in a way I can never imagine knowing, and haven't seen before or since), in spite of his pretensions.

We sat at his lovely bar, sipping great vintage brut champagne. Had a lovely hour of that with appetizers, moved to the dining room where we were, as usual, treated to a superb meal with wine that made the great food taste better, and great food that elevated the wine to ambrosia. I commented that the stemware was Waterford, how lovely, although I'd secretly preferred the champagne glasses, which were very, very simple and light, with that very fine lip I love.

He was gracious at the compliment, but replied that we'd had the champagne out of "the expensive stuff" .... Baccarat, at $100+ a stem.

I nearly spit my wine out with the mere though that a typically careless move of mine could have ..... well ....

 

[choclatechef]

Guess I'm with MiFW!

Buy the crystal cut glass, use it at every opportunity, and enjoy to the fullest!

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, New Years, Anniversaries, Birthdays, Christenings, etc etc, at home, why not pull out the "good" (read "expensive") stuff? Even if something gets broken, it makes the "Day" that much more "memorable"!

We always made a point f using the "good" crystal, the "best" tablecloth, the "fine" china, and the "expensive" silver at the least excuse, let alone Christmas, Thanksgiving etc...(even if it meant "buffing it up" a bit!)...when else can you enjoy what you have acquired?

This makes me laugh.....not that I don't agree with what Lifter said, but at my family.

Years ago, I collected a wonderful set of pink Dogwood pattern depression glass dinnerware. To go with it, I bought a set of the same era pink Bartlett-Collins stemware and glassware. Of course, I collected them piece by piece.

When I moved into my first spacious home my dad helped me move. I had given him hell for throwing my glassware boxes in the truck, and cried when I found 2 broken goblets. He got mad, so I told him how much each was worth. He almost cried himself then!

Within a month, I invited my parents and grandparents for a housewarming dinner after church. I pulled out all the stops, cooked for 2 days, and pulled out my best tablecloth, the heirloom silverware mom gave me, and of course my pink glass dinnerware and glassware.

The food [according to my taste testing cousin] was excellent, and the table decoration was perfection itself. I was soooooo proud......

When my grand parents and my parents arrived, the look on their faces was indescribible [sp]. No pleasure was noticable on anybody's face. Their expressions showed.......sheer, absolute horror!

Worse yet, they were so nervous they started shaking. My grandmother came out of it first, "Baby, it is beautiful. Why don't you get out the paper plates so we can eat." We argued.

I protested about how hard I worked and please sit and eat. Like Great Danes in a china shop, they ate their dinner, but they did not enjoy it. Everybody left asap. I was devastated [sp].

Unbeknownest to me, Dad had told them about my "expensive glassware", and they totally intimated.

Sad story huh?

 

[mudbug]

That IS sad, choc, especially after all your hard work!

Isn't it ironic, too, that Depression glass was the cheap stuff included in boxes of detergent/soap, etc. during the Depression? Now we look for it at flea markets, E-Bay, etc.

 

[Claire]

I, too, have had friends intimidated by a set table. Luckily we can help them over the hump. Do you think it was just the expense, or were some of them afraid to make a faux pas with the setting?

 

[choclatechef]

Claire, it was just us family. They were intimidated by the expense!

It hurt my soul because it was Valentine's day, and I thought the pink glass was perfect!

I never could settle them down to a nicely decorated table with the good stuff.

 

[luvs]

i would say go for the crystal. you can find them at Kaufmann's for a reasonable price. i have a love for crystal wineglasses and even drink my milk out of them, lol.
the only thing is, is that they're so fragile. but on the upside, it's easy to find the same exact pattern to replace the broken one. the glass wineglasses the instructor provided us in my wine-tasting classes were heavy, smudged easily, didn't make that 'clink' sound that crystal ones do, and vere noteworthily less clear than my ones at home.
it's really gonna depend on your budget and how much it really matters to you.

 

[Claire]

Can't resist one more addition. When I was growing up, most Sunday dinners (especially in winter) were eaten off my mom's very best crystal and china, we stayed dressed in our "church clothes", the flatwear was laid out correctly. We learned how to do it all. Then, in more recent years, the number of grand kids outstripped Mom's ability to set the table -- heck, they couldn't fit around the table any more. So one day I was yard saling with Mom, and noticed her picking up every cheap piece of stem ware she could find. What was she doing? "Well, I can't put the good crystal out any more to try to train them, so I'm buying stemmed glasses that I don't care about breaking to teach the kids how to eat and drink right!" At the time my younger set of neices and nephews were just growing out of sippy cups, and Mom was getting ready to teach them how to eat and drink! What a woman!

 

[keen kook]

Chopstix, may I add a tip that could save breakage of whatever type of wine glass you finally decide on?

I do hope I'm not stating the obvious here, but it is amazing how many people snap wine glasses at the stem when drying them!

When drying your wine glass, hold it by the bowl, NOT the stem.

Hope this saves any expensive breakages - particularly if you decide on crystal!

 

[Claire]

On breakage: Also do not use extreme temps of water. I tend to want to wash in super-hot water, and very thin glasses can shatter if they're cool and you dunk them in very hot water, or there are extremes between your washing water and rinsing water temps. I did this often when I was young. Take a glass with ice cubes in it, dump them, drop them in hot water. I know it's a 'duh', but by the end of a wine-soaked evening a lot of 'duh' occurs (I can't tell you how many sterling forks disappeared until I realized I was scraping off the scraps and somehow losing the forks in the trash). Now, even if I'm washing everything else after a long dinner party, the crystal stays put until the (more alert) next day. Oh, yes, the night's trash doesn't go out until I've counted the silver, too!!!