Welcome to Robb Recommends, a regular series in which our editors and contributors endorse something they’ve tried and loved—and think will change your life for the better.
If the world’s greatest wine glasses could talk, they’d probably tell you they were exhausted. The best examples have to tread an impossibly thin line: They can’t be too sturdy—otherwise you’d notice their heft, not the liquid inside—nor can they be so delicate that they fracture when washed.
But Glasvin, a New York City–based company that specializes in handblown crystal, makes striking that ambitious balance look easy. Its wares are lightweight, gossamer thin, and, crucially, designed to survive the dishwasher. On any given night, a raft of Michelin-starred eateries (including Kato in Los Angeles, London’s Restaurant Story, and Chicago’s Alinea) deploy and clean scores of Glasvin’s goods without suffering a single break.
It’s an enviable achievement, but it wasn’t David Kong’s priority when he started the brand in 2019. At the time, the former hedge-fund manager was looking for a cash-flow source to support his other business, Somm.ai, a software platform that helps wine professionals track and analyze sales trends. Still, he wanted to make things he’d be proud to use in his own home, so he scoured the globe to find the right producer, ultimately striking gold with a Chinese glassblower. “It really improves the drinking experience,” he says of how thin and light his models are. “It reduces the barrier between your senses and the wine, so you get a more accurate representation of what it’s supposed to taste like.”
After I’d used some of Glasvin’s offerings for a few months, it was hard to deny that assertion. Sipping from the Universal, a reliable daily driver, feels not unlike drinking from a cloud. The Expression, perfectly suited to bold reds, helped highlight flavors in a Châteauneuf-du-Pape that I’d long thought my neighborhood vintner was just making up.
Presented with this knowledge, Kong turns humble. “I don’t want to claim that we invented anything new,” he says. “The standards were set by other people in this industry.” Which doesn’t change the fact that he’s playing a game of millimeters—and winning.
