People seem to be fascinated by wine bottle sizes. Besides having wonderfully mythical names and looking very impressive at service, there is a method (if not logic) to the system, and there are reasons to own bottles of every size.
The entire system is based on the bottle. A bottle is three-quarters of a liter, 75cl. This rather awkward size is the result of the average bottle size at the time of industrial standardization. In the late 18/early 1900’s, as bottle production moved from artisanal to industrial, the size of the bottle was standardized to the average at the time. 750ml was the average because bottles were made with one breath of a glass blower, so apparently the average volume of air in a turn of the century glass blower’s lungs was about a bottle of wine’s worth.
The various volumes of the bigger bottles are all multiples of the 750ml size and break down as follows:
equivalent - Bordeaux - Burgundy/Champagne
Bottle (.750L) Bottle Bottle
Two (1.5L) Magnum Magnum
Three (2.25L) Marie-Jeanne -
Four (3.0L) Double Magnum Jéroboam
Six (4.5L) Jéroboam Rehoboam
Eight (6.0L) Impériale Methuselah
Twelve (9.0L) - Salmanazar
Sixteen (12.0L) - Balthazar
Twenty (15.0L) - Nebuchadnezzar
As far as bottle shape has been explained to me, and I see no reason to dig deeper, the two shapes evolved as a response to sediment. The grapes of Bordeaux throw sediment, so the broad-shouldered bottle was shaped to create a wall to catch it against while decanting. The burgundy shape has a much gentler grade because the sediment of pinot noir is finer and catches over the long slope as the end is poured gently.
Before you go getting all angry that the French can’t agree among themselves on what the name of a size is, remember that, at the time these things were being developed, the Bordelaise were actually British and that communication was nowhere near efficient. So probably at some point one wine guy went from one area to the other, saw a big bottle and said “oh we call that a Jeroboam” not realizing that the bottle was actually a little bigger, or smaller, than the one back home.
The primary enemy to maturing wine is air. There is air in wine bottles between the juice and the cork. As the amount of wine in a bottle grows the amount of air in the neck grows in a far smaller proportion, so the wine in an Impériale is exposed to far less air than the wine in a bottle. The result is a much slower maturation process. Therefore the arc of evolution of wine in a bigger bottle is much longer and gradual than that of a smaller one. The six liters of wine in a properly stored Impériale should last many generations. So, really, there is no reason, other than marketing, to produce still wine in a bottle larger then six liters.
For Champagne, however, there is the factor of the saturation of C02 in the juice; over time it will dissipate. As the wine matures and harmonizes, the gas is diminishing. The more liquid in the bottle, the more CO2 in the solution and the longer it will take to dissolve. This, plus how cool it looks on the head table at a wedding, is why champers is available in the larger bottles.
So, here is what we know about bottles. In smaller ones, the wine will mature faster. You want to drink that Borolo in seven years as opposed to fifteen? Buy it in a half-bottle. You want to share the treasure of the ‘96 vintage with your grandkids? Buy a double-magnum. With their grandkids? Buy a Jéroboam. The Bordeaux shape is made to catch sediment so the wine inside is probably made from thicker-skinned grapes. And best of all, the Champenoise for some reason think of pre-Christian Middle Eastern Kings when they look at large format bottles.
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