"riedel" news and stories

Photo: Riedel.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and now you can support the cause in style with Riedel's limited-edition pink glasses.

Crescendo ($70, pictured) is a set of four glasses, each in a different delicate shade of pink. Since they're stemless, the glasses are great for non-alcoholic drinks as well as white wines, and they're dishwasher-safe.

Pink Vinum Rosé ($59) is a set of two pink-stemmed glasses specifically designed for rosé wine. They're also dishwasher-safe, and the color of the wine isn't distorted, since the pink tint is limited to the stem.

Riedel is donating 15 percent of their pink sales to Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering all women affected by breast cancer to live as long as possible with the best quality of life -- now that's something we can all raise our glasses to. Order online or find them at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

For Slashfood readers who don't want to drink pink, the Pink Ribbon Shop is offering "Around My Mother's Table: Stories and Recipes Celebrating Lives Lost to Breast Cancer" ($16.95), the Breast Cancer Awareness Pink Ribbon Cookie Cutter, and more.

This could be dangerous.

Most people of legal drinking age have at some point mastered the necessary spatial relation between wine and standard glass to allow themselves an enjoyable portion while not getting totally sloppy after one initial serving. Riedel's new suite of machine-blown TriO red and white wine tumblers blows that all to hell. Their groundbreaking sans-stem O Tumbler takes a cue from the Champagne and beer end of the product line to reunite with a beehived, hollow base that's ridiculously pleasing the hand, and ever so easy to over-fill.

F'rinstance, the (very) generous pour in the dime-a-dozen IKEA glass on the right is the same quantity as seen in the TriO on the left. I tend to be a glass-oughta-be-full kind of girl, and found myself having to quite consciously refrain from serving right on up to the usual mark. There are worse problems to have, and these glasses are possessed of none of them. As mentioned before, the grooved stem is a treat to hold, the design quite visually appealing, and, joy of joys, they're dishwasher-friendly.

At $30 for a three-pack, they're not quite IKEA cheap, but they're hardly a $106 Sommelier's Grüner Veltliner Glass, either. The wine, by the way, is a $10.99 2004 Kanonkop Kadette from South Africa's Stellenbosch region and if you can't find it in a store near you, it's prolly because I went in and bought all of it. Sorry.

Recently I was invited to The Pink Party, a Rosé wine tasting event co-sponsored by Maximilian Riedel, CEO of Riedel Crystal of America and Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC), an education and support organization for breast cancer survivors.

For the past few years Riedel Crystal has been making special wine glasses from which a portion of the proceeds are donated to LBBC. This year the specially designed glasses are made especially for drinking dry Rosé wines and showing off their attributes to the best advantage. This event premiered the new Riedel limited edition Pink Vinum Rosé glass, that sports a light pink stem, benefiting Living Beyond Breast Cancer.

The party was held on Wednesday September 26, 2007 at Duvet, a lounge in NYC with a bed theme. I have heard about places like this, where you and a group of friends and new acquaintances can loll around on enormous beds, getting toasted while you try not to spill your cocktails and wine all over yourselves and the bright white sheets. Have you ever had one of those enormous and trendy cocktails, served filled to the brim and it slops all over as you try to take that first sip? As I was driving down to NY from Maine on my way to the party, all that kept going through my mind was Rosé wine and white sheets. I expected to see quite a lot of pink by the end of the night, and not just from the pink ribbons supporting LBBC sported on shirt and dress fronts.