Wineglass husbandry
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The tender feeding and care of wineglasses ... Recently, at Bin 8945, owner and general manager David Haskell served my table a Gruner Veltliner from Austria in gorgeous crystal glasses with incredibly slender green stems, part of a new Sommelier series from Riedel (pronounced to rhyme with needle) the famous Austrian glassworks. I was immediately smitten with glass lust. How much? I found myself asking.
‘Fifty dollars a stem -- wholesale,’ Haskell said. ‘We have just seven of them. I broke one when I was demonstrating how to wash them to the staff. And now I’m not allowed to touch them,’ he confessed.
Not all the stemware at the West Hollywood wine bar is as fragile, but they’re all good, thin-lipped crystal. When any of the staff gets a moment, he or she pulls on some white cotton butler’s gloves kept in a drawer behind the bar and polishes and inspects the glasses for smudges.
Serving wine in the perfect stemware enhances the experience, especially when Haskell is pairing glasses of wine with one of chef Michael Bryant’s tasting menus available in five-, seven- and 10-course lineups.
At my house, I’m not allowed to go near the wineglasses, either -- I’m too clumsy. I leave the washing to my husband, Fred, who has it down to a science. After dinner for six, we’re sometimes left with a couple of dozen dirty glasses. After rinsing them out with water, he leaves them lined up on the counter overnight. The next day he puts some music on the stereo and gets to work washing them by hand. That’s the easy part. It’s drying them that’s difficult.
He tried all sorts of cloths, but they always left some lint until he found a waffle-weave microfiber cloth at Koontz Hardware that doesn’t leave any lint nubs behind. (The brand is called MysticMaid and you can find it elsewhere too.) Another tip: Be careful not to put any torque on the stem of the glass while you’re drying it.
Bin 8945, 8945 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 550-8945
-- S. Irene Virbila