Rosendahl Premium Glasses: Tom Nybroe's Lightweight Series

Rosendahl's Premium glasses are tall, wide in the bowl and surprisingly light in the hand. This piece looks at what defines the series, how the four core shapes differ, and what that low weight means for daily handling, washing and storage.

A series built around the wine, not the shelf

Premium was developed by Rosendahl in collaboration with Tom Nybroe, a wine enthusiast rather than a career industrial designer. That starting point shows in the proportions. Each glass has a rounded, generously proportioned bowl on a long, slender stem, and the brief Nybroe worked to was about smell and taste first: give the wine, beer or champagne enough air and surface to open up, then make the glass elegant enough to sit on a dressed table.

The range is wider than most people expect. Alongside the red wine, white wine, champagne and beer glasses covered here, Rosendahl also makes a Premium Champagne Bowl at 39 cl, a Premium Tumbler at 52 cl, and glasses for spirits and water. The stemmed pieces share stems of equal height, so a full setting reads as one calm horizontal line across the table rather than a skyline of mismatched heights.

All four glasses in this article are made from lead-free glass and come as boxed pairs.

Four shapes, four jobs

Red wine, 93 cl

The Premium Red Wine Glass 93 cl is the statement piece: 23 cm high with a 12.5 cm diameter. That width is the point. A red wine poured to a sensible level sits low in a broad bowl, with a large surface exposed to the air, which is what lets the bouquet develop. You never fill it anywhere near capacity; the volume is there for space, not quantity.

White wine, 54 cl

The Premium White Wine Glass 54 cl stands 22 cm high with a 10 cm diameter. Rosendahl describes it as one of the larger white wine glasses in its class, and it suits aromatic whites that benefit from room to breathe. Its long, slender neck keeps the hand away from the bowl, which helps a chilled wine stay cool for longer.

Champagne, 37 cl

The Premium Champagne Glass 37 cl is 22.5 cm high and 8 cm across. It follows the direction professional tasting has taken over the past decades: flutes have widened so that champagne can open and develop in the glass, rather than being kept in a narrow column purely for the look of the bubbles. The result is closer to a slim tulip than a classic straight flute.

Beer, 60 cl

The Premium Beer Glass 60 cl is the shortest of the four at 17.5 cm, with a 9.5 cm diameter. It carries the same rounded bowl and slender neck as the wine glasses, which gives an aromatic ale or a well made pilsner the same respect as the wine on the table. Placed next to the stemware it looks like part of the family rather than an afterthought from the kitchen cupboard.

The numbers side by side

These are the figures Rosendahl lists for each boxed pair, as given on the product pages.

Two things stand out. First, the three stemmed wine and champagne glasses sit within a centimetre of each other in height, between 22 and 23 cm, even though their volumes range from 37 to 93 cl. The difference is all in the width of the bowl. Second, the weights are very low for glasses of this size. The champagne figure of 0.15 kg covers both glasses in the pair, which works out at roughly 75 g per glass for something more than 22 cm tall.

What the low weight means in practice

A light glass changes how you use it. Lifted by the stem, a Premium glass puts almost no strain on the wrist, and the balance sits in the wine rather than in the glass itself. You notice the drink, its temperature and its smell, before you notice the object. That is the experience wine enthusiasts look for in tasting glassware, and it is the main reason to choose this series over heavier, thicker everyday glasses.

Lightness also asks for a little more care. A few habits help:

• Hold by the stem. It keeps fingerprints off the bowl and, with whites and champagne, keeps the wine cooler.
• Wash on the glass programme. Rosendahl states the glasses are dishwasher safe at a maximum of 55°C on the glass programme. Give each glass its own space in the rack so the bowls do not touch.
• Dry and polish with a lint-free cloth. Hold the bowl, not the base, while polishing so there is no twisting force on the stem.
• Store upright or in the original box. The boxed pairs make sensible storage for glasses you bring out only for dinners.

Storage is where the dimensions matter most. At 22 to 23 cm, the stemmed glasses need a shelf or cabinet with at least that much clear height, plus a little to lift them in and out. Measure before you commit to a full set. The 93 cl red wine glass, at 12.5 cm across, also takes noticeably more shelf width than a standard wine glass, so plan for fewer per row. The low weight is an advantage here: a shelf of Premium glasses puts far less load on glass shelves or wall cabinets than the same number of heavy crystal pieces.

Building a Premium table

For a dinner where you serve one wine, a pair of glasses per guest is enough: one for the wine and one Premium Tumbler for water. When there is a white with the starter and a red with the main course, set both wine glasses at each place, white to the right of the red, with the champagne glass added only if there is an aperitif at the table. Because the stems share one height, three glasses per setting still look orderly.

The beer glass works well on its own for informal meals, or in place of the white wine glass when a dish suits beer better. Rosendahl also encourages mixing Premium with other glasses for a less formal look, and the clean, undecorated shape makes that easy. If you are weighing it against Rosendahl's other wine range, our comparison of Grand Cru glasses covers the alternative in detail.

A practical way to start is with the glass you will use most often, usually the red or the white, and add the champagne and beer glasses later. Since each comes as a boxed pair, building up to a set for four or six is simple.

Who the Premium series suits

Premium is for people who care about what is in the glass and want the glass to help rather than get in the way. It suits a household that drinks wine with dinner regularly, entertains a few times a month and has the cabinet height to store tall stemware. If you want something to survive a busy family kitchen with minimal attention, a shorter, heavier tumbler is the better fit. If you want a light, generous glass that lets a good bottle show what it can do, Premium is a strong choice.

See the full range of wine, beer and champagne glasses in our Glassware collection.