Whom You Know Highly Recommends the Elegant Bottega del Vino Crystal Champagne Flutes for Your New Year's Eve Champagne and for the other 364 days too
If the Wine Matters, So Does the Glass. With the holidays upon us, champagne and good wishes are flowing. The finishing touch is a graceful, elegant champagne flute from Bottega del Vino Crystal. We highly recommend them! During the holiday season, there is much to celebrate and you must celebrate with the proper glass. We first began our coverage of this iconic brand recently and specifically recommend the Champagner and the Recioto Spumante for your New Year's Eve celebration, and the other 364 days of course.
Inspired by a life in wine and created by Severino Barzan, Bottega del Vino Crystal wine glasses are first and foremost, wine-driven in design and creation. Each piece is painstakingly mouth blown and hand finished to the highest world standards for balance, weight, shape and the tactile pleasure of holding the stem and drinking from it.
Each stem features a superbly crafted bowl with single pull stem for the best possible feel in hand and mouth. Their crystal is unique in the world because it is not fragile; indeed it is suitable for restaurant use, yet it offers the finest presentation available for your wines both in appearance and taste. Best of all, these champagne flutes are 100% dish washer safe!
This is the supermodel of Champagne glasses. Tall and thin, it is exquisite and wears champagne like the latest couture on the runway. At a height of 10.5 inches it is among the tallest flutes we have ever used and the Champagne looks fabulous in this shape, which is the best for displaying and keeping it until it reaches you. Holding 8.5 oz, the Champagner is for Young, Nonvintaged Sparkling Wines. You will experience Bottega del Vino's commitment to quality with every sip of bubbly!
The Recioto Spumante is just perfect for favorites such as the La Grande Dame (Veuve Clicquot). It stands at 8.5 inches tall and holds 23.75 oz and is designed for all vintaged sparkling wines. When you see the glass you will want to celebrate! When you fill the glass your eyes will light up. Finally when you taste the champagne you will understand why the glass makes such a difference.
Bottega del Vino offers no machine made products. There is only one quality level – the best they can make by hand. This sounds like what the Widow Clicquot said... Bottega del Vino Crystal provides the perfect balance between tactile pleasure and everyday practicality, unmatched by any other stem! You would not put yourself in a bad outfit after you have your hair, makeup, shoes, jewelry, skin, and everything else exactly the way you like it (perfect)-so you should not put your champagne in an inappropriate glass when you are drinking the best!
Bottega del Vino Crystal began as a small boutique brand in the ancient city of Verona, Italy. The story and history is as amazing as the glasses. A few years before Columbus sailed for America, an osteria opened and began serving food and wine in the already ancient City of Verona about 60 miles west of Venice. As the centuries came and went, despite the many changes that time and conquering armies brought to Verona, the osteria remained and in 1890 became known as “Bottega Vini”. In 1986 Severino Barzan, a man who had spent his life from the age of 14 in the world of wine and hospitality, purchased Bottega Vini. Mr. Barzan began to expand the cellar and by the mid 1990’s wine lovers around the world began to speak about Bottega del Vino as a significant destination in the wine world, due to the breadth and depth of it’s wine list.
During the same period, the wine world had begun to appreciate the innovative Sommelier glasses made by Claus Reidel and indeed, these stems were used in Bottega del Vino. Crystal had been made with lead for centuries, because the lead offered excellent cutting and grinding properties for creating highly decorated (and usually very thick walled) crystal stemware and other objects. The problem was that when making large, thin rimmed glasses out of traditional leaded crystal, the finished product was extremely fragile and this created an economic hardship on wine lovers around the world, including those at Bottega del Vino.
Seeking a solution, Mr. Barzan visited a number of glass producers in the region and explained the problem. With time and much trial and error, an answer came to light – create the stems from crystal that was similar to optical crystal, which is made without lead. Lighter, stronger and clearer than leaded crystal, the result was a stem that had the desired lightness and balance, yet was amazingly durable and dishwasher safe. As far as we know, back in 1996, Bottega del Vino was the first company in the world to produce wineglasses using crystal made without lead. Mr. Barzan also simplified the concept of different varietal stems, based on his lifetime of work in the field.
Over the next few years guests at the Bottega marveled at these wonderful glasses which were durable enough to be used in a restaurant, yet an absolute joy to look at and hold in the hand. From time to time, a guest from a foreign country would approach Mr. Barzan to purchase some stems to take home and share with wine enthusiasts in their own country. In 2000, Robert Hall, a frequent guest from Chicago, sent 5 pallets of stems home, planning to share them around Chicago, but the demand for the stems grew across the country. Today, Bottega del Vino Crystal is admired around the world. The company does not chase trends or compromise quality for any reason. The mission is to make the very best, simple, elegant, hand-made wine glasses possible and offer them at fair prices to wine lovers around the world.
Taking a sip of wine is the last step after years of hard work required to bring the wine to you. You can spoil most of the pleasure of a good wine by using a bad wine glass. Or, you can make the most of that moment with Bottega del Vino Crystal, because it’s really true: If the wine matters, so does the glass™.
It first appeared in the U.S. as a local offering for a few wine lovers looking for great crystal and in the last 8 years has grown into a nationally available brand. The stems can be ordered at Park Avenue Liquors, 292 Madison Ave, Beekman Liquors, 500 Lexington Ave or by ordering online at bottegadelvinocrystal.com. We recommend them!
