Riedel Glassware

The Riedel family has been in the glass business for 300 years spanning 11 generations. More recently it was Professor Claus J. Riedel who was the first designer to recognize that the bouquet, taste, balance and finish of wines are affected by the shape of the glass from which they are drunk.

Forty years ago Claus J. Riedel began his pioneering work to create stemware that would match and complement different wines and spirits. In the late 1950s, Riedel started to produce glasses which at that time were a design revolution. Thin-blown, unadorned, reducing the design to its essence: Bowl, stem, base. Working with experienced tasters, Riedel discovered that wine enjoyed from his glasses showed more depth and better balance than when served in other glasses. Claus J. Riedel laid the groundwork for stemware which was functional as well as beautiful, and made according to the Bauhaus design principle: form follows function.

In 1961 a revolutionary concept was introduced, when the Riedel catalogue featured the first line of wine glasses created in different sizes and shapes. Before this, conventional stemware had used a single basic bowl shape, with only the size varying depending on use.

The Vinum collection, introduced in 1986, was developed by Georg Riedel on the principle that the content commands the shape, is the “Vitrum-Vinothek” for every day use.