What is it about our species that leads us to be such collectors and proud possessors of things? True, I may not know many who get worked up about jewelry, but I do have a friend who has the largest, oddest shoe collection ever (she occasionally gives tours of her shoe closet for fundraising events). My neighbor collects stamps. My Tucson friend has gems and stones that are unbelievable. All good stuff.
However, I’m not much of a collector. When I first moved to the Midwest and was sure that our house, no other house, just our house was somehow marked and would therefore implode during a tornado, I would take with me to the basement my collection of photographs. That’s it. These days I’d probably also take my lap top. Otherwise I have no special attachment to things. My feeling is that it’s all replaceable and we’d all be better off without it anyway.
Maybe that’s why I never bothered to acquire, one expensive glass at a time, good wine glasses, even though I am a wine enthusiast and track wine trends through a variety of publications (predictably, I do not have much of a wine collection either).
However, two years ago, for some inexplicable reason, I broke down and bought 2 Riedel glasses. I picked the shape that would more or less work with bold full bodied reds (like Burgundies), which already is a cheat because you’re supposed to use a SPECIFIC glass for each wine. But the purchase set me back by a month’s worth of salary and so I wasn’t going to humor the Riedel nuts even more.
It was not meant to be. The box with the glasses was opened with some fanfare. The beautiful, delicate glasses were carefully washed, dried and placed in an old china closet (with a loose hinge). In closing the door of the closet, the hinge fell off, the door caved in and 50% of all glassware inside (the cheap stuff as well) was destroyed, including one of two Riedel glasses. I took that to be an omen and have never bothered with a replacement.
I read that Claus Josef Riedel died last week (NYT here). The company is in good family hands, but I do have to say that his was an impressive feat: to create a need that has busted the pocket book of many a person, even though, for the vast majority of wines, drinking from a tumbler will do just as well.
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