There's Titanium in the Glass

I was down to my last two Burgundy glasses and we were having my friend Deetrane and his family over for dinner to celebrate his birthday. One of the wines I wanted to pour was the 2001 Philippe Pacalet Pommard (a bit over the hill, as it turned out, but that's another story). So on a rainy Saturday afternoon a took my 2 year old daughter into The City, as we Brooklynites call it. We went to a popular kitchen/dining/that-kind-of-thing store and I picked out four Schott-Zwiesel Burgundy glasses. I'm not buying Riedel anymore as daily drinking glasses because no matter how careful I am, I break one glass every month or so, minimum. Riedel glasses are $20 each, Schott-Zwiesel glasses are also quite nice, and are half the price. Settled.

I had my daughter in one arm, the box of glasses in my other hand, and I put them on the checkout counter. The young woman behind the counter said "Oh, these are great glasses! Did you know that there is titanium in them?" No, I didn't know that.

Titanium is something of a wonder-metal. It is light, not all that dense, but very strong, easy to blend with other metals to create useful alloys for things ranging from aircraft engines to plastics to the outer coating of household tools. And apparently now, wine glasses. It makes perfect sense - titanium's lightness and strength, it's white color, and the relative ease with which it can be alloyed make it a great choice for stemware.

I reacted with surprise, so did my daughter, and the saleswoman said "Let me show you." She opened the box and took out one of the glasses. With a sudden movement she raised it up in her hand and banged it down on the counter, really banged it, smacking the bowl of the wine glass onto the wood. There was a loud "Gong" and I of course recoiled, trying to shield my daughter from what would certainly be a cascade of glass shards. But the glass did not break. Clearly this is the glass for me.

I laughed nervously and said "Wow, that's great, I'll just move my two year old out of the way next time," and she laughed, and again, more quickly this time, banged the glass on the counter. But this time it did break. It broke kind of like a windshield, a spider web of cracks and a few large chunks flew about the counter. Scary - what if glass had hit my daughter's face? But impressive too - even though she smashed it like you would use a hammer to strike a nail, the glass did not shatter.

Everyone was fine of course (except the saleswoman, who I'm guessing is not entirely fine in the head), and I still bought the glasses. And I haven't broken any yet. Then again, I haven't repeated the saleswoman's experiment.