Useless thread, just wanted to vent a little. I know broken stems are par for the course for my too fragile Reidel Vinums, but I expect a little more durability from SZ. All I was doing was washing it with gentle pressure. The stem was a “top ten full bodies red”. Oh well, $10 into the garbage. This is after I told my wife I would wash all the stems cuz she breaks too many.
I have those SZ Titan ones, one snapped right in half when a poker chip was dropped about 6 inches directly to the middle of the stem and it snapped right in half. Sucked.
My wife broke a couple of the SZ Tritan Burg stems when she was washing them. I thought they were supposed to be infused with titanium or something to make them more durable.
I flicked a Sommelier Riedel once with my wrist to get a little water out of it and watched helplessly as the bowl detached and sailed into the floor. $50 gone.
alan
My answer: (1) nothing over $10 per stems, save for a few rarely-used Riedel glasses and (2) run 'em through the dishwasher. My cruddy 25+ year old GE dishwasher has never broken a stem. Meanwhile, well-meaning friends have finished off three in the last month thinking they were doing me a favor by hand washing my glasses.
Not that I have ever tried this but I thought some stems have an insurance portion built into the cost that lets you be reimbursed if you break one, is this true?
If you have a connection, try to get your hands on the Reidel Restaurant Series glasses. They are a little more durable. I break a restaurant series for every 3 Vinum or other high end stemware. I do have a tendency to snap the lip off the restaurant series trying to remove lipstick. The other odd thing is dropping the restaurant series and watching the stem go into 5 pieces while the bowl remains intact.
I got 18 new zwiesel Fortes a couple months ago and thought I was being smart and careful putting them in upside down after 1 use…as to not smudge the bowls…and one slipped half way down and broke at the stem…I then decided a little finger smudge wasn’t a big deal and put them in right side up.
Everyone’s story made me feel better, especially Alan’s. Well, not Poppy’s, I hope that didn’t happen to you. Now, I have to go buy another stem cuz I hate mismatched stems on the dinner table.
I will leave fine Riedel glasses to rich people. They are poor value for money and glasses WILL break. You break one of those babies and you’ve lost the equivalent of a killer bottle of wine. Doesn’t make sense to me.