What, Exactly, Is ‘Break-Resistant’ Glassware?

If wine glasses tend to slip out of your grasp as you dry them or boisterous hand gesturing during wine time with friends causes you to inadvertently topple over your stemware, you might want to consider investing in some break-resistant glassware. 

But before you get too excited at the prospect of being able to drop vessels on the table or floor sans cracking or shattering, it’s helpful to dive into what this label on a glass does—and doesn’t—mean, and what you can expect if your butterfingers strike again. 

‘Break-Resistant’ Defined

When a glass is labeled “break resistant,” it means it’s “engineered to withstand more impact and stress than traditional glass or crystal,” says Marshall Tilden III, chief revenue and education officer for Wine Enthusiast. 

Manufacturers incorporate materials into regular glass including titanium, reinforced borosilicate or magnesium to make the material more durable.

They also use processes like thermal tempering, in which glass is heated to a high temperature and then rapidly cooled, and chemical tempering, which uses a molten potassium nitrate bath to harden the glass, to strengthen its structure at a molecular level. 

These techniques often result in glasses that have a bit of “give,” bolstering them with a bit of shock absorption that allows them to withstand a certain amount of impact without damage.

By contrast, adding lead oxide or metal oxide to glass, as is done with crystal, may boost brilliance and shine, but it also makes it extremely fragile. However, crystal glassware that’s infused with titanium, an element with a high strength-to-weight ratio, can result in stemware that’s more durable and resistant to breakage.  

What to Expect from Break-Resistant Glassware

Let’s be clear: break resistant does not mean break proof. 

While the addition of minerals and other steps during the manufacturing process can increase the resilience, you’ll still want to be sure to handle it carefully—and manage expectations. 

“Extreme force, like being slammed against a hard surface, drastic temperature changes (such as pouring boiling water into a frozen glass) or deep scratches that compromise the integrity can still cause them to shatter,” Tilden cautions. After all, they’re still made from glass.

But the extra hardening makes a difference. Albert Belegu, general manager of Benjamin Restaurant Group in New York, is partial to the Vienna line of break-resistant stemware, which is machine-blown in Europe from lead-free crystal.

He touts them for their elegance, height and large bowl providing wine with ample room to breathe—and that the stem and base are connected as one unit. (When most glasses break, it’s at the point where the stem meets the base.) Since the glass is lead-free, it offers remarkable clarity.

In his experience, if a glass does break, he says, it’s more apt to come apart in larger chunks that are safer to handle. He likens it to the crack you might get from an object hitting a car’s windshield versus the complete shatter that might occur if the same object hits one of the windows, which is made from tempered glass.