Slightly obnoxious size isn’t it? Something as big as the photo shows is meant to just be decorative only. But what happens when you bring 4 bottles of beautiful Chateauneuf du Pape and 2 more elegant Bordeaux to a restaurant? You don’t want the wine glass on the table normally reserved for ice water. And you definitely don’t want the little wine glass that you can’t get a nose into or a swirl out of. You want the big wine glass. And, God help you, you’re actually thinking: crystal.Stay home.

On a recent visit to a restaurant, oh lets just say for argument’s sake, in Tucson Arizona, we asked for the “big wine glasses please” that we were assured they owned. We were told something along the lines of, “They’re in the dishwasher.”

When we saw other guests just arriving, also with their own wines in tow, we tried again, wanting to have the hot, wet glasses fogging up our wines first.

But now they were said to be, complete with what appeared to us as unapologetic glee, “Being used at another table.”

When the other table got OUR glasses, at that point, we just wanted to get our bottles opened to dash into whatever receptacle we could find. (I was grateful not to be wearing pumps.)

We grumbled until we started, gee, you might have guessed it, drinking. Eating helped too. Suffice to say if you want a really nice glass either drink out of your own at home, steal from your neighboring table or go to a wine-friendlier restaurant.

No, I’m not telling you where we were. But feel free to reply to this post as to where we should eat…errr I mean drink…next.