Riedel’s new Champagne glasses are lighter, taller -- and dishwashable

Need a gift for someone who revels in the bubbly not just on New Year’s Eve, but all year long? Try this: a two-pack of the new Riedel Veritas Champagne wine glasses from the 300-year-old Austrian glass company, Riedel.

Developed with the input of the Champagne industry, the crystal glasses veer away from the narrow flute model, with a broader bowl designed to give ample room to the Champagne’s bouquet.

With its tall, slender stem and the graceful swell of its bowl, the Riedel Veritas Champagne Glass is elegant and timeless. But the real magic is in the way the glass manages the bubbles. If you taste a Champagne from this glass side by side with a more conventional flute, the wider rim of the Champagne glass shows more of the wine’s bouquet and the bubbles are finer and softer, giving a beautiful mouthfeel.

The Champagne glass is part of the new incredibly thin, machine-made Veritas series from Riedel. The company spent more than a year developing the technology to make them. As a result, the glasses are 25% lighter than Riedel’s Vinum series and 15% taller — the supermodels of Champagne glasses. And yet they can still go into a dishwasher.

The company has also re-introduced the Champagne coupe, which is so trendy right now for cocktails, in the Veritas series.

The Riedel Veritas Champagne glasses and Champagne coupes sell for $69 for a set of two from riedel.com and also from fine wine shops and high-end department stores such as Bloomingdale’s. The Veritas series includes 10 different glasses, each designed for a different varietal. And there’s also a Riedel Wine Glass Guide, available on the App Store.

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