Wine bottles: types of glassware, sizes, parts, volume. Types and types of wine bottles, as well as their size, height and volume The size of a standard wine bottle is 0.75
Quickly navigate to the article
The most popular type of modern bottle is the so-called “Bordeaux” bottle. It has existed since the end of the 19th century. This is a tall narrow cylinder with strict steep “shoulders”. The height of the entire bottle is usually from 28 to 34 cm, diameter - 7–8 centimeters; The height of the neck is about a quarter of the height of the entire bottle. It is also characterized by a small depression at the bottom, which prevents sediment from entering the glass. Bottles of dark green glass are used for red wines, and light green bottles for dry white wines. Rose and white dessert wines are usually bottled in clear bottles. In France, “Bordeaux” varieties are most actively used in Provence.
The second well-known type of modern bottle is “Burgundy”. It is not so high - about 27–32 cm, and wider: 8–9 cm. It differs from the “Bordeaux” one by a more massive base and graceful, sloping “shoulders”. The “Burgundy” version is used in the Loire Valley, as well as along the Rhone.
A separate “Rhône” version may be slightly taller, with a rather massive neck. Rhone bottles often have a coat of arms embossed below the "neck".
The well-known champagne bottle is essentially the same, “Burgundy” version, somewhat reinforced to resist high pressure. Typically, a sparkling wine bottle is olive green in color and has both durability and elegance. Due to its popularity, the “Burgundy” form can be stylized. For example, designers often make a bottle with thick glass and a thicker girth.
Quite often, the “Rhine” type is also used for wines. It is distinguished by its large height: 31–35 cm, and extraordinary “slenderness”: less than 7–8 cm in diameter. For such narrowness it was even called “flute”. Its “shoulders” are even flatter than those of the “Burgundy” version. The very smooth and gentle curves suggest that the drinks in these bottles are made specifically for ladies.
The Rhine type was and is produced in a wide variety of colors, but most often from green or amber glass. Throughout the 19th century, this form was used for both white and red local wines; Nowadays, red Rhine is usually bottled in the more familiar “Burgundy” form. Most often, the “Rhine” version is taken for classic grape varieties such as Riesling, Müller-Thurgau, as well as the legendary Gewürztraminer.
Small bottles
It's hard to believe, but there are times in life when a standard 750 ml bottle of wine is simply too much. For example, when you are in a restaurant, after which you will need to drive. Or when you just want to drink just a little on a lonely weeknight at home. Or when you sit in a narrow airplane seat.
It is for such occasions that wine is sometimes produced in smaller bottles. There are basically two sizes available, defined in fractions of a standard bottle size:
One quarter standard bottle or 187.5 ml
This volume is known as a quarter or Piccolo (from Italian “small”). These tiny bottles are mainly used to serve champagne and other sparkling wines to one person. They are most often used in public places such as hotels, airplanes, stadiums or nightclubs. Sometimes they are also called Split, Pony or Snipe.
Half a standard bottle or 375 ml
A half or demi (from the French for "half") contains about two glasses of wine. The French sometimes call this volume Fillette, which translates as “little girl.”
Many halves are made with a cork rather than a screw cap. This means that when you open them, you can hear a pleasant popping sound, like when opening standard bottles.
But keep in mind: wine ages faster in small bottles! As such, they are not intended for long-term storage - even if they contain aged wine.
Magnum bottle
A Magnum wine bottle contains the equivalent of two standard 750ml bottles, i.e. 1.5 litres. This is by far the most popular of the large formats, and the name adopted in all regions: the word magnum is used in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne.
It is also the only large format that is not named after a biblical king or historical figure: the name comes from the Latin word magnus, meaning "large." In fact, the term "magnum" is used quite often by different brands that offer a larger product than others - for example, for some ice cream or a pistol.
Magnum is good not only because it contains more wine, but also because the wine in it ages slower than in a standard bottle. This happens because less oxygen penetrates into the wine contained in a larger bottle. It is for this reason that collectors and wine connoisseurs often prefer this particular volume.
Even the worst wine in a bottle is much more attractive than the best one out of a cardboard box. Elegance of shapes, curves, variety. All this inexplicably attracts many. And I don’t want to kill this magic by telling you that it’s just a glass container for wine. And it is the drink that is important in it. I don’t want to, but I still have to.
A Brief History of Wine Bottles
For many centuries, clay amphorae, wooden jugs, copper jugs and various other inconvenient vessels were used as containers for storing and pouring wine. And as soon as glass was invented, almost immediately similarities to modern standard types appeared. wine bottles.
The first discoveries of architects indicate the first use of glass containers in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East as early as the 6th century AD. But then they were still original vessels with ears for carrying liquids by attaching them to a belt or to a horse/camel.
It was not until 1630 that Briton Kenelm Digby introduced the modern wine bottle into use. At first they were thin and fragile, so they were used only for delivery from the cellar to the table. Over time, they began to cast from thick dark green or brown glass.
This is how the bottle industry was born, which has developed over centuries and brought dozens of types of wine bottles to this day. And it continues to evolve to this day. But it's time to move on to our days.
Main types and types of wine bottles with their names
The diagram above shows standard bottles for French wine. They are used all over the world. And the greater the difference from this standard (in color, shape, curves), the greater the chance that there is something unimaginably disgusting inside. So let's not cover all the varieties, but focus on the bottled classics. Here are their names and descriptions:
1. Bordeaux (originally from the French province of Bordeaux) cylindrical in shape with high shoulders and a recessed bottom. There is a “heavy” variety for elite wines and a “light” variety for more modest ones. The second is lighter, slightly lower and with a less deepened bottom. Their glass color is brown or green.
2. Burgundy (from the French province of Burgundy) with sloping shoulders, made of greenish-yellow glass. It also has a recess at the bottom.
3. “Alsatian flute” or Rhine bottle. Tall and narrow, without a depression at the bottom. Most often green, sometimes brown. But it can also be transparent in the case of rosé wines.
4. “Veronica”, which is something between Alsace and Burgundy. Distributed in some French provinces and appellations.
5. Standard bottles for champagne from the Champagne region and most sparkling wines around the world.
6. Variant from the province of Jura in eastern France.
7. "Clavlin" with a volume of 0.62 ml for a special type of wine "vin jaune" (the so-called "yellow wine" from the province of Jura).
8. “Amphora” or “skittle”, as well as cone-shaped. Both species are from the province of Provence in France.
9. Options for fortified wines from the province of Roussillon.
There are other specific species and types, but most often they are used in small quantities and do not travel beyond their traditional place of use. If you see something on the shelf that stands out from this row, it is almost certainly some kind of marketing ploy. So that you pay attention to the wine that does not deserve attention.
About volume, height and other sizes of wine bottles
A standard wine bottle (called a "magnum" or "magnum") has a volume of 750 ml or 0.75 liters. Sometimes it is indicated on the label as 75 cl, that is, 75 centiliters (1 centiliter = 10 ml).
However, there are many various types and smaller or larger bottle types. From 0.125 l (for some sparkling drinks) to 10 l (for still wines) and even 15 liters for champagnes. If we talk about records, the largest sample had a volume of 111 liters and a height of 153 cm. It was made by Swiss glassblowers.
Each bottle of wine is protected by a capsule made primarily of aluminum or tin foil (for inexpensive wines it is made of plastic). These capsules are not needed for sealing, but to protect the neck from dust and the wine cork from mice. They are also used to identify wine and protect against counterfeiting.
The thickening or “ring” (its name is bague) at the top of the neck is necessary so that the glass does not crack or burst when sealed with a stopper.
Sometimes we ourselves do not notice that we live in a world of rules, regulations and standards. These bureaucratic documents streamline our complex lives, make decisions easier, and generally make life more understandable and sometimes more enjoyable.
At the same time, these standards and rules themselves often seem quite arbitrary. Why should you wash your hands before eating and drive on the right side of the road? Who came up with these rules and where did they get them from?
Yes, most often no one came up with anything special. Everything is taken from real life. The Volga simply flows into the Caspian Sea.
For example, fortresses in Thailand and Byzantium were built from bricks of approximately the same size. Having learned about this, one could come up with a fantastic theory about the interaction of two cultures so far from each other, and begin searching for ways of this interaction. Through the Great Silk Road, or what?
In fact, everything was much simpler. The dimensions of the brick are determined by the size of the mason's palm and the strength of his hands. Therefore, as soon as people began to make artificial stones from baked clay, bricks, the dimensions and weight of these bricks turned out to be approximately the same, no matter where they were made. Probably, the Tower of Babel was also built from bricks of the usual size.
In the same way, it is known that the dimensions of a modern space rocket are ultimately determined by the size of the rear of the horses that were harnessed to carts during the Roman Empire. Those interested can restore the entire chain of connections by Googling the phrase “horse ass”
Therefore, the question posed in the title of the article makes sense. In fact, why did the ¾ liter bottle become practically the standard for a wine bottle? What kind of magic number is this, 0.75 liters?
There are four answers to this question. And all the answers are logical and have a right to exist. Which of the following answers is correct is up to the reader to decide. Or maybe they are all correct
The first explanation is that the volume of 0.75 liters is the volume of a glassblower's lungs. Once upon a time, the production of tableware was not automated, and every glass item, including a bottle, was blown by a master. This explanation is easy enough to verify. One has only to find out what the lung capacity of a normal person is.
Have you asked? We answer! The total capacity of the lungs is 5000 cubic centimeters (5 liters). During a normal inhalation or exhalation, a person uses only a tenth of this volume, about 0.5 liters. Well, the glass blower is not an ordinary person. His breathing will be stronger. So 0.75 liters is a figure similar to the truth.
The second explanation for the strange phenomenon of the 0.75-liter bottle is that this is the total capacity of six glasses. Three glasses of wine a day, as doctors say, do not lead to alcoholism, but they do make life more fun. And if you share these three glasses with a friend (or girlfriend), life will become even more enjoyable.
The version, of course, is quite fair for countries like France, Italy, Spain or Georgia, where they drink a lot of wine every day, and where wine is made good quality, without calling some shameful shmurdyak a high word. True, it should be said that in the above countries, wine for everyday consumption is stored not in bottles, but in barrels or underground jugs. Bottled wine is for sale only. In this case, the great homespun truth may be that the bottle contains half a dozen glasses. In the old days, it was more common to count by dozens.
The third version is production. They say that 750 milliliters of wine comes from just 1 kilogram of grapes. It also seems true. Technologists confirm: when using an industrial press, the amount of grape juice is 70% of the weight of the grapes.
Finally, the fourth version is the trading version. England was the main exporter of French wine. In England, the British system of measures was widespread for a long time, which now survives only in the United States of America. The unit of liquid volume in this system was the British gallon (4.54 liters). 2 gallons is exactly a dozen 0.75 liter bottles.
Moreover, the carrying capacity of ships was calculated in barrels. The volume of such a barrel was 200 gallons or 900 liters. It is not difficult to calculate that this is exactly 100 dozen bottles. It is quite easy to calculate how much wine can be loaded onto a ship. Or how many ships will be needed to transport a certain number of bottles.
Why is the capacity of a standard bottle exactly 750 ml?
It turns out that everything is explained by practicality. The fact is that one barrique ( Oak barrel) contains 225 liters of wine, which can be bottled in 300 bottles of 0.75 liters, i.e. in this case there will be no loss. These bottles will fill 25 cases (boxes of 12 bottles). In the USA, wine volumes are considered cases. A standard bottle holds six glasses.
Two styles
There are two main styles of wine bottles, Bordeaux and Champagne, which differ in shape. “Bordeaux” has “shoulders”, while “Champagne” does not have them. Traditionally, Bordeaux bottles are used for still wines, and Champagne bottles for sparkling wines. The names of the bottle sizes, or formats, “Bordeaux” and “Champagne” are slightly different.
"Bordeaux"
They begin counting their volumes from 375 ml. They are called "demi" which is really equal to half the standard volume of 750 ml.
“Jenie” – 500 ml(two thirds of the bottle). Manufacturers mainly bottle high-quality wines for HoReCa or dessert wines such as Sauternes, Tokai, etc. in bottles of this size.
The next format after the standard one is 1 liter(no special name) usually used for cheap wines.
"Magnum" - 1.5 l holds two standard bottles.
Double magnum – 3 l(four 750 ml bottles). The remaining large bottles received biblical names or Babylonian kings.
“Jeroboam” – 4.5 l(six standard bottles) until 1978, and currently - 5 liters. The bottle is named after the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, who reigned at the end of the 10th century BC. for 22 years.
“Imperial” – 6 l(eight bottles).
“Salmaneser” – 9 l(12 bottles). Shalmaneser is the name of several kings of Assyria.
“Balthazar” – 12 l(16 bottles). Balthasar is mentioned in the Bible as the Babylonian king under whom Babylon was captured by the Persians. He is also one of the three wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus at Christmas.
"Nebuchadnezzar" – 15 l(20 bottles). Nebuchadnezzar is the Babylonian king.
"Cmelchior" – 18 l(24 bottles). The name of another magician.
"Maximus"– 130 l (for 1200 glasses). This is one of the largest bottles ever produced. Its height is 1.38 m, weight when empty is 68 kg. This giant Cabernet-Sauvignon Privat Reserve, 2001 from Beringer (California) was sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 2004 for $55,812.
"Champagne"
“Quarter”, or “piccolo”, “pony”, “split” - 187.5 ml
“Half” – 375 ml
Standard – 750 ml
"Magnum" - 1.5 l
“Jeroboam” – 3 l(four 750 ml bottles).
“Rehoboam” – 4.5 l(six standard bottles)
“Methuselah” – 6 l(eight bottles). Methuselah is known in the Bible as one of the forefathers of mankind, the grandfather of Noah. In Burgundy this name is also used, in this region it is not allowed to use a larger format than 6 l.
“Salmaneser” – 9 l(12 bottles).
“Balthazar” – 12 l(16 bottles).
“Nebuchadnezzar” – 15 l(20 bottles).
"Cmelchior" – 18 l(24 bottles).
“Prima” – 27 l(36 bottles).
"Melchizedek" - 30 l (40 bottles)
Size matters
It is known that wine is a living organism that has a period of development, peak and decline. These processes occur differently in bottles of different sizes. The smaller the volume of the bottle, the faster the wine develops and the shorter its lifespan.
“Magnum” is considered the optimal volume for bottle aging of still wines, because oxidation processes occur in it more slowly than in a standard bottle, and it matures more slowly. A large volume of wine receives less oxygen. Therefore, “magnum” is preferable for collections.
Typically, the larger the bottle, the more expensive the wine is, compared to an equivalent number of standard bottles. Bottles larger than magnum are rare.
TOP chateaus like to bottle their wines into entire collections of bottles of different sizes and sell them together. Such collections also appear at auctions, where they are offered at very high prices. For example, a set of Château Montrose wines, 2010 (12 “halves”, 12 standard, 3 “magnums”, and one each of all other large sizes) was sold at the Sotheby's London auction (held in April 2018) for £38,240 .
This idea could be borrowed by Moldovan producers, offering wines for special occasions. Of course, they can only be sold in company stores. In Moldova, I know of only two companies that use bottles larger than magnum. Cricova bottles sparkling wines in 1.5 l, 3 l, 6 l and 15 l bottles. And Mold-Nord - in 1.5 l, 12 l and 18 l.
Wine bottle sizes was last modified: May 11th, 2018 by Anghelina-Taran
A regular bottle of wine has a volume of 0.75 liters and is considered standard. But you’ve probably come across larger vessels that can hold one and a half, three, five, or more liters. You may have heard the term “champagne magnum.” How much is it, and what is the maximum bottle size used in the wine industry? Let's also try to figure out what names this or that bottle has in the professional slang of winemakers.
Until the beginning of the 18th century, wine was usually stored in barrels and amphorae, but as soon as people learned to massively use corks to seal bottles, vessels of various sizes began to appear in everyday life, to which special names began to be assigned. Currently, wine bottles are produced in twelve main volumes in the world, some of them only regionally, and for special occasions. “Split” is the smallest bottle with a volume of 0.187 liters, “Half” is 0.375 liters, then comes the standard bottle - 0.75 liters. Next comes a double volume bottle of 1.5 liters, called “Magnum”. It is said that the name comes from the Latin phrase “magnum bonum”, meaning a big good thing. Since this expression was popular in Scotland, as applied specifically to alcohol, it gave its name to the standard large bottle of wine, shortened to simply “Magnum”. "Marie-Jeanne" - holds 2.25 liters of wine. The bottle is named after one passionate alcohol lover who lived at the beginning of the 18th century. Then comes the three-liter Double Magnum, and then begins a series of bottles (more like mega-bottles!), rarely used and bearing the names of Old Testament kings and prophets.
Some experts believe that the name for the next largest bottle was first used in 1725, when in the province of Bordeaux winemakers created a special vessel of four times the size (5 liters) and, due to its massiveness, called it “Jeroboam”. It should be noted that confusion sometimes arises with Jeroboam, since today the French Jeroboam of Burgundy and champagne holds approximately 3 liters of wine, and the same bottle of Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignon holds 4.5 liters. The following volumes are produced mainly in Burgundy and Champagne: "Imperial" (as well as "Methuselah") - 6 liters, "Salmanazar" - 9 liters, "Balthasar" - 12 liters, "Nebuchadnezzar" - 15 liters, "Melchior" - 18 liters The reference books also indicate: “Solomon” - 21 liters, “Sovereign” - 25 liters, “Primate” (or “Goliath”) - 27 liters, and “Melchizedek” (or “Midas”) - 30 liters. However, such bottles are extremely rare and belong exclusively to champagne, not least because such “bubbles” are incredibly difficult to use.