Wine from vineyards use to come in so many stylish forms ranging from big, fortified and full bodied, to something petite and light. When size matters… we have to talk about so many things as there is a long history behind these size variations. The major change in shapes and size of wine bottle took place in mid 1700’s. With that evolution people discovered that the bigger or larger wine bottles not only look better but they also lead to some change in taste of wine. Yeah! That’s a strange fact. And it is because these large bottles allow wine to age perfectly over longer periods of time as compared to the standard glass sized bottles of these days.

 

 

With time, it was well proven that large size of wine bottle is much suitable for aging of the special Bordeaux wine and some other wines of this category. And finally people started adopting that pattern of filling wines in large sized bottles.

 

Let us discuss one interesting fact here: when we talk about small size bottles then it allows lesser amount of air (more accurately the combination of sulphur dioxide and oxygen) to reside inside as the space between cork and wine is very less. This ratio of air and wine is well known as ullage. This ullage plays important role in aging of wine as it helps to oxidize wine in such a manner that it can age prematurely. Or the other option is to develop a slower speed of maturity with ullage. When wine gets more space to interact with air then it finds much better environment to develop. This is the main reason why half bottles are able to develop in much better manner as compared to large format bottles. In simple terms we can say that if you plan to buy an old wine bottle then definitely you will get something better to taste and it will also appear impressive on your dinner table.

 

One more important thing to know about large wine bottle formats is that they are developed with thicker glass component and hence the wine faces very rare temperature changes inside. This steady temperature assists in better aging of wine. You will be glad to hear that all large size wine bottles are well known by their unique names. And more interesting thing to explore is that most of these names are derived from Biblical characters.

 

 

If you search about large wine bottle formats you will hear some of these common names:

 

  • Jeroboam: contains 5 litres of wine
  • Methuselah: 6 litre wine bottle (It is believed to be as old as 969 years)
  • Salmanzar: 9 litres or simply 12 bottle format
  • Balthazar: It can grow up to 12 litres with 16 standard wine bottles.
  • Nebuchadnezzar: The bigger one with 15 litre wine
  • Solomon: 20 litre capacity
  • Melchizede: 30 litres
 

So we can simply say that “Yes! Bottle size matters”. And your selection must be planned accordingly; after all you must taste the best collection out of racks. 

 

By: Blake Smith

Contact:media@kazzit.com

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