9 Best Wine Glasses of 2024, According to Experts

Experts in the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen and GH Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab are constantly using and testing wine glasses at work and in our homes, as well as at restaurants, bars and tasting rooms.

To compile this list, we relied on in-house testing and 40+ hours of research, sourcing favorites from editors and investigating additional top-rated brands and popular models. When testing wine glasses, we compare different styles and brands, tasting various wines, to evaluate the feel of the glass in the hand, durability and enhancement of the wine drinking experience, among other factors. In total, we considered more than 50 different glasses before narrowing our list to the top nine.

✔️ Thickness: “I look for thinness in glasses,” says Sohm. “When the glass is thin and light, the focus is on the wine.” A thin rim on a glass will indeed ease the transition of the wine from glass to mouth for a smooth, more seamless drinking experience. Typically, the thinnest wine glasses will be made from crystal, whose mineral content makes it more malleable and resilient than glass.

✔️ Durability: Tidwell prioritizes durability and strength in a wine glass. She always asks, “Does it have a sturdy stem and a good base to it?” when looking for glasses. She prefers ones with a little weight to them because they need that on restaurant dining tables. A heavier glass also means that it can stand up to some dishwashing and getting knocked around.

✔️ Stem: For the length of the stem, Tidwell wants “something you can grasp pretty easily.” The stem is what you'll be holding when swirling the wine in the glass. It should be sturdy enough to grip firmly while polishing the glass. A longer stem looks elegant on the table but it also has a functional purpose: creating a physical distance between the bowl of the glass and your hand, which can warm the wine. However, a stem that's too long and thin may be fragile and easier to tip over the glass. It's best to consider which stem length best suits your lifestyle and if that means foregoing the stem, then so be it. Having stemless glasses that are intact is better than broken stemmed glasses. This is especially true for drinking outdoors, where knocking a wine glass on the ground is less forgiving.

✔️ Height: Another practical consideration is the height of the glass. Will it fit in your cabinet? There’s nothing worse than picking out a beautiful set of stemware only to find out they’re too tall for your shelves. Before committing to a particular style of glass, measure the distance between shelves, allowing some head room for what will sit on them.

✔️ Price: What to pay for a wine glass really depends on what you can afford. We found good, serviceable glasses for as little as $3.67 per glass. But if you want to level all the way up and go super high-end, you could pay as much as $78 per glass. We found great picks between those two price ranges.

✔️ Material: Again, the material you choose will depend on your budget. How much you spend can also correlate to your enjoyment of the wine, but that doesn't mean the priciest glass is the best for everyone. From least to most expensive material:

• Plastic: Pretty much shatterproof, even when dropped on the ground, plastic wine glasses are ideal for outdoor drinking — and that might be its only perk. Plastic glasses don't enhance the wine drinking experience. In fact, they detract from it because plastic imparts its own smell and taste. It's a bit of a party pooper for wine.
• Glass (borosilicate and soda-lime): Durable and accessible, wine glasses made from glass are the workhorses in a stemware collection. However, glass needs to be fairly thick to be durable, so a glass wine glass won't have that smooth transition of wine to mouth that finer crystal glasses tend to have. Glass is also less refractive (sparkly) than crystal.
• Crystal (machine-blown): Made in molds simultaneously, machine-blown crystal wine glasses are a more affordable choice than their hand-blown counterparts. They are able to be spun very thin for that coveted thin rim in the best wine glasses, while still be durable — more so than hand-blown crystal glasses. On the flip side, machine-blown glasses have a "factory-made" look.
• Crystal (hand-blown/mouth-blown): As the name suggests, hand-blown crystal wine glasses are made one at a time by hand by a skilled artisan, hence the steep price tag. They have an ethereal look and unmatched sparkle, with graceful lines that reveal the artistry involved. To many wine experts, hand-blown crystal is the Rolls-Royce of materials for wine glasses. They're prized for being lightweight and super thin for the optimal wine drinking experience. However, those features also make hand-blown crystal wine glasses more fragile.

At the most basic level, there are two main types of glasses: one for red wines and one for white. A glass for red wine tends to have a more capacious bowl with a larger opening than one for white wine. Truth be told, you can use one type of wine glass for all wines, but “certain shapes enhance certain varieties of wine,” says Sohm.

Larger bowls found in red wine glasses help aerate wine, letting the flavors open up and announce themselves. White wine glasses have a relatively smaller bowl because they generally don't require the aeration that their red counterparts do.

✔️ Burgundy (Pinot Noir) glass: The classic Burgundy glass has a distinctive balloon-shaped bowl that tapers at the top to capture the lovely aromas of a red Burgundy (Pinot Noir). That tapering channels the wine to hit the tip of your tongue then disperse it to the sides. This targeted delivery is meant to balance the wine’s fruit with the acidity — key for Pinot Noir, which tends to be high in acidity.

✔️ Bordeaux (Cabernet) glass: A Bordeaux glass is designed to be optimal for drinking — you guessed it — Bordeaux (predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Merlot). This glass will be less bulbous/tapered than the Burgundy glass so that more oxygen can aerate the wine inside. Introducing that air is crucial for Bordeaux and Bordeaux-style wines, which tend to be high in tannin and alcohol. The bowl is also taller to allow for more room at the top to swirl and decant the wine further in an effort to soften the tannins. The column-like shape is designed to deliver the wine evenly across your tongue.

✔️ White wine glass: This category could be divided by varietal (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and so on), the gist is: Most white wine glasses tend to be smaller than red wine glasses because most whites don’t require the aeration that reds do. The shorter bowl brings the wine closer to the nose, helping you detect more subtle aromas, like delicate floral notes. White wine glasses tend to have a longer stem than those for red wine to keep the hand further away from the bowl and prevent it from warming the wine.

✔️ Champagne flute: The narrow shape of a flute captures the bubbles of sparkling wine and helps keep the signature effervescence. While a flute is iconic, one downside is that it doesn’t allow for swirling and can, therefore, mute the aromas. Despite the name, the flute is not the go-to glass for Champagne among many wine experts. “Flutes are celebratory and fun but I definitely recommend a white wine glass for Champagne,” says Braithe Tidwell, wine director at New Orleans restaurant Brennan’s, whose wine list boasts more than 150 Champagnes. “It’s a wine that should be taken seriously and deserves a proper glass where you can pick up on all the different aromas.” Aldo Sohm also favors a white wine glass for Champagne while his wife prefers a flute. “She thinks it looks sexy and has an elegance,” he says. “Some people are attached to Champagne flutes — that's okay with me."

While you could have a glass for each varietal of wine, it isn’t feasible in most homes nor is it necessary, according to many wine experts. “I'm a little bit more minimalist,” says Sohm, “mainly because I live in New York City where real estate is precious.” He believes all you need are Bordeaux, Burgundy and white wine glasses. Perhaps a set of Champagne flutes, if you’re adamant about them. Or, if you only want one type of glass, consider a
"universal" wine glass that's suitable for reds, whites and sparkling.

Sohm's approach to whittling down his collection is similar to what wardrobe experts recommend for decluttering a closet: “Within a year, look at the glass shapes you use most often. If it boils down to less than a handful, that's pretty much your answer.” Similarly, when shopping for wine glasses, think about the wines you drink the most. That should inform what kind of glasses to buy.

While ultimately you should only shell out what you can afford for glassware, and some of our top picks are around $4 per glass, Sohm (who is a brand ambassador Zalto, the maker of the $78 glass) believes you will experience more from wine with the best wine glass. “People have no problem spending $50 on a bottle of wine but spending $50 to $70 on a glass is absolutely impossible for some reason,” he remarks.

At Aldo Sohm Wine Bar, he will pour unknowing guests the same wine in two different glasses to prove a point. When they say they prefer the wine in the more expensive glass, they inevitably want to only drink out of that glass. “This is the problem with luxury,” says Sohm. “Once you touch it, everything else feels like a beer mug.”

Susan Choung is a recipe editor for Good Housekeeping, where she reports on all things related to wine and spirits. Her previous experience includes four years working at a boutique wine and spirits shop in Brooklyn, New York, where tasting and evaluating samples was a daily occurrence. During her five-year tenure as books editor at Food & Wine, she tasted, edited and coordinated testing of all beverage recipes for the cocktail book series.

For this story, in addition to conducting over 40 hours of research, she interviewed Braithe Tidwell, beverage director for Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, New Orleans, and Aldo Sohm, wine director for Le Bernardin and Aldo Sohm Wine Bar in New York City and a brand ambassador for Zalto glassware.