Given the company’s penchant for making a glass for every occasion, it’s no surprise to anybody that Riedel has created a 2000 Millennium Champagne flute. Believe it or not, this flute is actually the third in a series of six limited edition crystal flutes to mark the Millennium, whenever it occurs. Covering its bases to an extent as yet unwitnessed by this observer, Riedel will also introduce entirely new and limited Millennium glasses for not only the year 2001, but also 2002 and 2003, by which time, I would have hoped, we would all be getting on with the rest of our lives in post-Millennium peace. Riedel suggest that since they are destroying the steel molds being created for the glasses on March 31st of the year following their production, that they might become collectors items. I know I’m only a wine writer and that such things are well beyond any field of expertise in which I could claim to have any professional cred, but I sincerely hope for those who buy them that Riedel does a little better with the last three Millennium glasses than the example I have of the 2000 edition. It looks exactly what I would expect to find in some outback bric-a brac store which hadn’t received any new stock for sale since 1960s kitsch was at the very pinnacle of its quaint but harmless tastelessness. Riedel’s 2000 Millennium Champagne flute will cost you $45 per glass.
