Unbreakable Wine Glasses

I knew that there had to be something up with these break-resistant glasses, but after having broken one of my favorite crystal stems (leaving me with only three stems), I needed to look for something more “Mark-proof”.  I must have inherited a genetic tendency to break stemware because my sister has worked her way through more than a dozen stems in the past decade.  This is my third broken stem in seven years.  So, I ordered a set of magnesium-infused wine glasses from the Wine Enthusiast back in 2009.  My suspicions about these glasses were stoked when I opened the second box of four neatly-wrapped stems and one was an inch shorter than the others.  Indeed, one of the stems had broken in transit or in storage.  The most amazing thing was how responsive Wine Enthusiast’s people were to replace the damaged stem.  When I called to report the problem, they captured my phone number from the caller ID, matched it to my order, confirmed my shipping address, and 90 seconds later my replacement glass was on its way.  That is what I call service!  And I realized that I wasn’t buying unbreakable stemware so much as a company that stands behind its product.


Break-resistant wine glasses arrive with one glass "shorter" than the others.

Flash forward to June 10, 2012.  After having finished my second (and final) glass of the 2006 Bell Sonnette, I reached for the remote next to my glass to turn off the TV and brushed the glass off of the end table where it stood.  As I watched the glass fall in slow motion, I wondered how it would react.  Would it bound about on the floor, spilling trace amounts of wine and bumping about?  Or, would it perform like most wine glasses that fall a distance of thirty inches and shatter upon impact?  Well, the slow motion ended with a substantial crash, as shards of glass splintered across the hardwood floors.  I guess I kind of expected that.  If you want unbreakable stemware, get acrylic.  If you prefer to enjoy your wine from a fragile yet elegant wine glass, be careful with your glass stemware.  Duh.

(I actually have a cruel joke that I play on my friends where I hand them a clean acrylic stem and let go of it just as they are almost within reach of the “glass”.  They have a heart-attack as the object falls to the floor, only to bounce back up to their knees before bouncing again off the floor.  I pulled this trick on my sister who immediately pulled it on someone else.)

So, I now have to call Wine Enthusiast again to find out whether this sort of “use” qualifies for replacement under the terms of their ten-year limited warrantee.  That will come tomorrow.  I am curious to see how my experience this time will vary from my first contact.

(Read the rest here.)