Washing wine glasses usually includes breaking a couple, at least over time. I've got a beautiful collection of glassware pieces on top of my refrigerator waiting to find their home in the trash or recycling. Half of them are stems(the bottoms) and half of them are bowls (the tops). When my uncle came to visit, he asked me if they were a piece of art. I laughed and then started thinking of ways that I could make them art. I settled for using the bottoms as ring holders. Jewelers say that you are not supposed to wear your wedding ring (or any precious gem) when doing dishes, putting on lotion, taking a shower, at the gym, and pretty much any time where you use your hands in any capacity. This is pretty difficult to remember, and , for me, its even more difficult to actually get the darned thing off. I've managed to make it a little easier by placing broken wine glass stems in just about every room in the house where I might need to take off my ring. So tip #1 for today is: use your broken wine glass stems as ring holders. Just make sure there are no sharp edges on the top that you could cut yourself on (and don't attempt to sand it down without doing some reading first, my husband said I could easily have hurt myself).
Tip #2: Never wash glasses when you've had more than a couple glasses of wine (a couple meaning about two, not about four). This will almost eliminate the need for tip #1, but there are plenty of places to buy a nice inexpensive ring holder. I tried to make this rule very clear to my New Year's Eve guests as they very graciously offered to help clean up after our dinner party. One very sweet and well meaning guest would not accept my plea to leave the wine glasses for me to wash in the morning, and what do you know, I have another ring holder...
Tip #3: Make sure that your complete attention is on washing the glasses. Obeying tip #2 will help with this, but there are always a million other things you could be thinking about, besides washing glasses, and I recommend that whenever you are thinking about something else, wait and wash the glasses when you can focus. Sounds pretty silly, but every time I've broken a glass when I haven't had more than two glasses of wine, my mind has been on other things. FOCUS!
Tip #4: Buy special brushes for washing glasses. I know this also may sound silly, but if you have nice glassware, you really should. They cost about $7 and they will save you much more. You should only wash wine glasses with it, and keep it out of the sink. This will also help your glasses from smelling like a wet dog, but I might be the only person who notices that happens with a normal dish sponge. They also keep you from putting extra pressure on one side of the glass (which often causes the bowl to snap into a couple pieces) as you would with a normal sponge. You can find them on wineenthusiast.com, and probably in your local wine shop. Everyone I know thinks I'm a little obssesive for having them. They are probably right, but I definitely break fewer glasses because of them (and then there's the wet dog thing).
You can dry your glasses with a soft towel and leave them out if they don't get entirely dry right away. They also sell special towels for drying, but now I'm showing that I'm definitely obsessive about my glasses. However, having some would sure make someone think you know your wine stuff. (P.S. You can also buy the towels on wineenthusiast.com. They are "suede microfiber wine glass towels").
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2 comments:
I don't recommend leaving your wine glasses out on the counter to dry if you have a cat. I did that and in the morning I had 3 wine glasses and 3 ring holders. Only problem is that I did not realize I had ring holders at the time. Good tip!
Wine glasses out to dry: will do it from now on! In regards the diamond ring tip - I use Windex to help taking it off and only use the wedding band at the gym... ;^D
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