Is Riedel Worth It? Why the Glasses Cost What They Do

Extreme is one of Riedel's machine-made collections, built around a wide, angular bowl for big reds. Riedel's page lists the Cabernet glass at 9.72 inches tall and 4.09 inches across, with a 28.22 ounce capacity, machine-made from crystal in Bavaria, Germany, and dishwasher safe. The shape was developed, Riedel says, in sensory workshops, and the page lists two dozen wines it is for, from Bordeaux and Cabernet Sauvignon to Montepulciano and Carménère.

The set of four is a pay-three-get-four pack, which is how Riedel gets a $30 glass down to about $22 a stem. That is the Riedel premium in plain numbers: roughly $10 a glass over the Zwiesel Pure beside it, for a bigger bowl, a more dramatic profile and the name. On a dinner table the Extreme reads as a decision, which is part of what people buy.

Skip it if you drink white or light reds as often as Cabernet, or if you want one glass for everything; a 28 ounce bowl makes a normal pour look lonely and needs a tall shelf. Skip it too if you were buying Riedel for the handmade story, because this is not that glass.

Zwiesel Kristallglas, from the town of Zwiesel in the Bavarian Forest, is the German maker Riedel did not buy. Pure is its modern line, recognizable by the angular shoulder where the bowl meets the upright sides. Zwiesel's page lists the Cabernet glass at 244 millimeters tall, 92 across and 540 milliliters, about 19 ounces; the Amazon listing says 9.6 inches, 3.6 inches and approximately 19 ounces, made in Germany, dishwasher safe, in a set of four sold by Amazon.

The glass is Zwiesel's Tritan crystal, a lead-free formulation, with the Tritan Protect treatment that Zwiesel says makes it particularly break-resistant and suited to the dishwasher. That is the one claim here that Riedel does not make for the Extreme. At about $12 a stem it is also half the price, for a glass the same height with a bowl sized for a sensible pour rather than a display one.

Skip it if you want the dramatic oversized bowl, or a smooth, round classic shape; the Pure's angles are a matter of taste. For the full head-to-head with Zwiesel, see our Riedel versus Schott Zwiesel guide.

Vinum is the collection Georg Riedel designed in 1986, the first machine-made range shaped by grape, and Riedel's page calls it the best-selling series it makes. This glass, 8.27 inches tall and 3.11 across, is Riedel's most versatile white wine shape, cut to balance acidity and fruit in Riesling and to work for a few reds such as Zinfandel. Riedel describes it as premium machine-made crystal, dishwasher safe, and gives a recommended pour of about 4.2 ounces.

It is here mostly for the arithmetic. At $85 for two the Vinum is about $42 a stem, nearly twice the Extreme's pack price and three and a half times the Zwiesel. That is the number people have in mind when they ask why Riedel is so expensive, and it is the number you pay whenever a Riedel is not on a value-pack deal. It is the same machine-made crystal as the Extreme.

Buy it if Riesling or Grüner is your house white and you want the glass Riedel built for it. Skip it if you want a red wine glass; the Extreme Cabernet is cheaper per stem and sized for it. Riedel's Vinum Cabernet is on Amazon only through resellers at the moment.

The Gabriel-Glas is the opposite theory to Riedel's. One bowl, broad at the base and tapering to the rim, meant to serve red, white, sparkling and rosé so a household owns six glasses instead of thirty. The StandArt is the machine-made edition; the listing calls it machine-made Austrian crystal, lead-free, about 16 ounces, and Gabriel-Glas's own page lists it at about 150 grams, 510 milliliters and 23 centimeters tall. The maker says the lead-free glass resists the blue discoloration, milky clouding and scratching that older crystal picks up in the dishwasher, and recommends the upper rack on a normal program.

At about $34 a stem it costs more than the Riedel Extreme per glass, and the case for it is cupboard space and simplicity rather than price. It is sold on Amazon by Gabriel-Glas North America, the brand's own storefront, and is the glass our everyday wine glass guide names the one to buy.

Skip it if you want a bowl sized for a big Bordeaux; it is a universal, and a universal is a compromise. Gabriel-Glas also makes a mouth-blown Gold Edition at a much higher price, which is the hand-blown route if you want one without the Riedel name.

Libbey is the Toledo, Ohio glassmaker whose tumblers are in half the restaurants in the country, and Kentfield Estate is its stemware line for the home. The listing describes a classically curved bowl with thin walls, made of Libbey's ClearFire glass, lead free, 9 inches tall and 3.4 inches wide, dishwasher safe and packed in a gift box. It is pitched for reds, whites and rosé alike, and for water.

This is the glass that settles whether you are a Riedel person. If a $45 set of four does everything you ask of a wine glass, the Riedel premium buys you nothing you will notice. If the Libbey feels thick at the lip and the bowl seems to flatten the wine, you have found out what the extra money is for, cheaply.

Skip it if you want crystal's clarity and ring, or a glass that will survive years of dishwasher cycles without the rim going dull. Ordinary glass does not have Tritan's hardness.

Wine Friendly is the collection Riedel calls the entry into its crystal, a universal design meant to replace several glasses with one. The tumbler is machine-made crystal, 118 millimeters tall and 96 wide, about 4.6 by 3.8 inches, dishwasher safe, and sold in a set of four by Amazon for about $18 a glass. Riedel's page says the line was developed for restaurant use, and the listing pitches it for everything from water to cocktails to wine.

A tumbler gives up the stem, which means warm hands on the bowl and no swirl room, and gains a glass that fits a dishwasher rack and a kitchen cupboard and does not snap when a child reaches past it. For a household that has broken four Riedel stems in two years, that is the sensible Riedel.

Skip it if you want the grape-specific argument; a tumbler is a universal shape and Riedel does not pretend otherwise. People searching for the Riedel O tumblers will find them only from third-party sellers on Amazon at the moment, which is why this one is here instead.