A wine glass has to look elegant, feel good in the hand, and deliver an optimal aromatic and taste experience. So of course I was drawn the new Glasvin company with their slogan “hand-made wine glasses that were blown to impress, and priced to break.”
Choosing wine glasses is tough. You’re always walking a fine line, trying to balance price, design and function. Will this glass look good on my table, impress my friends, allow the wine inside to shine, be dishwasher-safe, and not break easily?
Sometimes it seems this is impossible without overspending — and then spending every dinner mentally guarding your glassware from nicks, scratches, and wildly expressive gestures. Which is the problem that founder and CEO David Kong set out to solve when he started Glasvin. In just a couple years, Glasvin has grown from conception to suppling restaurants as well as home users with stemmed and unstemmed wine glasses, cocktail glasses, decanters. And I should point out that the “preferred” method for washing these glasses is in the dishwasher.
All handblown, the glasses do deliver a rich aroma and flavor. They have reasonably sized bowls for tasting as well as drinking, and are quite light, though stable, with thin stems. Kong says he expects people will start with a few glasses from either Glasvin or Glasvin Home, and gradually expand when they are confident in their experience with this glassware. He points out that this is incremental spending “if you spend more than $200 a year on wine” – which is hard not to do these days.
Having sampled wine in both glassware lines, right now I’m more comfortable setting the less expensive glasses on the table. But after a few successful dishwasher experiences, I could envision the next tier…
Glasvin 2-packs starting at $48 for Glasvin Home All-Purpose, $50 for Stemless and $79 for The Universal.