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Good Thinking

The Spirale wine glass: A new twist on an age-old problem

By Mike Hanlon
August 30, 2017
The Spirale wine glass: A new twist on an age-old problem
The Vacanti Spirale wine glass
The Vacanti Spirale wine glass
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The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
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The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
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The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
The Vacanti Spirale wine glass
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The Vacanti Spirale wine glass
The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
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The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
Patrick Vacanti and his solution to a 10,000 year old problem
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Patrick  Vacanti and his solution to a   10,000 year old problem
Mankind has loved its wine for thousands of years - Patrick and Margarita Vacanti offer some innovation to a problem at least 10,000 years old
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Mankind has loved its wine for thousands of years - Patrick and Margarita Vacanti offer some innovation to a problem at least 10,000 years old
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The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist at the bottom that captures sediment. Given wine sediment is a problem that would have confronted the ancient Phoenician, Greek, Egyptian and Roman civilizations, and many other cultures over the last 10,000 years, it's quite astonishing that this simple design hasn't been done before.

It seems the marketplace has recognized the virtues of the Spirale, as the glass nearly doubled its $48,000 goal on Kickstarter and is now up for pre-order on Indiegogo OnDemand.

The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment
The Vacanti Spirale is a wine glass with a corkscrew-like twist which captures sediment

A set of two of the hand-blown glasses can be pre-ordered at a cost of US$49, with shipping slated for November. The retail price is has been set at $35 each, which is possibly a negligible expense compared to the value of the wine that will be drunk from them.

Creators Patrick and Margarita Vacanti discuss the Spirale in the pitch video below.

The Spirale™ Wine Glass

View gallery - 6 images

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Good ThinkingAlcoholWineGlassDrinkingVicanti Spirale
12 comments
Mike Hanlon
Mike Hanlon
As a photojournalist, Mike’s work has been published in a dozen languages across 20+ countries. He has edited or managed over 75 different print publications, each with a different target audience: sports, automotive, advertising, marketing, design, ad infinitum. Mike has been working in the internet for more than 25 years and was the veteran of five internet start-ups before founding New Atlas in 2002.

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12 comments
RonCallahan
Boy, that spiral has to be a bear to clean, though, especially if the glass sits overnight.
J*hn
what is wrong with decanting the wine
r0b3m4n
@Ron
If your help is letting your glasses sit unattended overnight you should probably replace them anyways.
Dan Lewis
I hope some kind of ultrasonic cleaning device comes with the glasses.
ljaques
Connoisseurs (winos, IOW) have been putting up with debris in their glasses for _that_ long? Har! Lots of class, that. Glad I sobered up in '85, and never was a wine drinker. Well, I hope the glassmakers do a brisk business with all of them.
Martin Winlow
".. it's quite astonishing that this simple design hasn't been done before."
There are 2 very good reasons that explain this fantastic riddle.
1/ Cleaning (as others have pointed out) 2/ $35 *PER GLASS*!!!
Yet another hopelessly impractical answer to a non-problem destined for the dustbin of history.
MerlinGuy
Oh, man! I was going to say those things but everybody beat me to the comments. Thank you, smart commentors for pointing out that we really don't need this product. Just another answer in search of a problem.
Grunchy
I guess you could use a filter to remove sediment from the liquor. The solution probably doesn't need to be so complicated. Also: bleah! Wine is just gross. So are the winos who chug it. Whatever happened to "rotting grape" brand wine, I always got a laugh at that. What kind of person buys such rot?
JimFox
Surely wines have been sediment-free for decades?
JimFox
"Wine is just gross. So are the winos who chug it."
What makes you such an anti-wine zealot? Or gives you authority to abuse those who drink it?
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