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[/custom_frame_left]I've seen a lot of debate about stemless wine glasses and whether real wine drinkers should use them. The biggest complaints against them seem to be 1) that they are not traditional, and 2) that if you hold them too long you can change the temperature of the wine.
I'm not going to disagree with either of those arguments, but I'm also not going to stop using my stemless glasses for one main reason: I'm lazy.
Yes, I can give you a lot of good reasons why I use the glasses. I'm not as likely to break them. They don't tip as easily. My guests are less likely to spill from them. But in reality, the ease of use and cleaning of the glasses is what really gets me.
First of all, they are dishwasher safe. I could probably stop right there. I love that I can grab a glass for dinner and throw it in the dishwasher and not have to hand wash it. I don't even think about it anymore. It's just an automatic thing to pull out the stemless glasses from right next to the regular glasses. That's much different from the beautiful set of 20 stemmed crystal glasses that I got for my wedding. I never use them because they are hard to clean. They literally look pretty and gather dust.
Secondly, they are incredibly easy for entertaining. I have friends who do not drink wine. I don't have to try to figure out how many people coming over drink wine and how many do not. I just pull out enough stemless glasses for everyone. People who aren't drinking wine just pop a couple of ice cubes into them and pour in their Diet Coke and use them as a tumbler. Everyone has the same type of glasses and no one stands out. Then I throw all of the glasses into the top shelf of my dishwasher after everyone leaves.
Third, they are inexpensive for what you get. You can get stemless glasses for as little as a few dollars each. Even the really nice ones go for between $6 and each.
If you are really concerned about not enjoying your wine as much as you could while using stemless glasses, by all means bring out the stemmed glasses when you are drinking your $50 a bottle wine. But with my $15 a bottle wine, it just doesn't make too much of a difference. You can even get different red and white stemless glasses made specifically for those types of wine.
I think stemless wine glasses make a perfect gift because it's hard to have too many of them. I have 12 right now and it still isn't always enough. I could probably have a set of 24 and would sometimes use all of them (especially if half are in the dishwasher). Maybe I'm lazy. Maybe I'm ahead of the curve. But I love my stemless wine glasses.
