Boy, did I have one of those red faced moments two nights ago, and it wan't from the wine. Nice restaurant, bottle of 2004 Tatiarra shiraz, myself and three close friends.
At one point I set my empty wine glass down on the table. Much to my surprise, as soon as the base made contact with the table, the stem of the glass snapped! I had a WTF moment, followed by my friends poking fun at my drinking style.
"Well, heck, you slammed the glass down!", my best friend in the world asserted in mock disgust. I fell for it, and protested, "No, I didn't." Picking up a second glass, I countered, "All I did was this." And I set the second glass down like I did the first.
Whereupon the stem of the second glass promptly snapped in two, just like the first one!
I don't think shock adequately conveys my sudden inability to formulate a coherent phrase. While my friends were now mercilessly flaying me, I just stared at the pieces of glass, like I was in the Twilight Zone or something.
"JJ didn't realize, when he stepped into Ponti that evening, that we'd secretly switched his Spiegelau stemware for clear-fused Folger's Crystals. Now he can't understand why the shards smell like a cheap French roast."
The glasses were large (cab size) Spiegelau, and both were empty. I was holding them by the bell when I set them down. I've handled countless pieces of high end glassware in my time, including some pretty nice stuff here at the house. Sure, I've boken glasses before, but never like this. In fact, I've never seen glasses break in this way before.
Anybody else experience this kind of stem breakage?
For the record, our wait person was surprised, too, but said, "No big deal. We'll just throw them out." And yes, I left her an extra large tip.
JJ