"True Facts" Wine Bottles, Busted

Wine bottles sure come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Is this but one more plot to confuse you and me? Well, not intentionally!

In the old world of Europe advancements in glass-blowing technology melded together with tradition. It is this and a historical sense of regional branding and marketing identity that gives us the bottle shapes and colors we see on store shelves today. The new world of the Americas and the Southern hemisphere have for the most part simply adopted these old world bottle style conventions for similar wines. 

A.       Bordeaux: Straight sides and high shoulders, with dark green glass for the dry reds, lighter green for the dry whites, clear glass for the sweet whites.

B.       Burgundy: Gently sloping shoulders  with both red and white wines in similar sturdy green glass. In the new world this shape is widely used for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Wine bottles from the Rhone have very similar sloping shoulders like the Burgundy bottle, but a bit slimmer. In the Rhone, the bottles very often bear a coat of arms on the neck.

C.        Champagne: Thick glass, gently sloping shoulders and a deep punt (the indentation on the underside) are needed to sustain the intense pressure inside the bottle.

D.       Alsace and Mosel: Tall, slender and narrower than other styles, with a very gentle slope to the shoulders. Green glass suggests either the Mosel in Germany, or Alsace in France. Rhine wine is bottled in a bottle similar in shape to the Mosel/Alsace bottle, but the glass color is traditionally colored brown.

E.        Fortified wines: Port, Madeira and Sherry are traditionally packed in sturdy square-sided bottles which may have a bulge in the neck that functions to help capture the sediment when the aged wine is poured or decanted.

4th Down and Ten

Each of these bottle styles has a bottom surface that may be either flat or "punted" – except for Champagne/sparkling which demand the added surface area and strength that this indentation or punt provides. The true origins and rational for the punt seem lost to history. However, it isn’t difficult to deduce one reason  - and that is to have bottles stand upright. If you can imagine your self a glass bottle maker - it was much easier for a glass blower to form an even plane on a molten glass orb by pushing up on the center of the bottom, rather attempting to turn one that was perfectly flat. 

In today's eco-conscious era there are efforts under way to reduce the weight of wine bottle glass to minimize the carbon footprint. The glass gets thinner and the punt goes away. More and more wines are going into bladders for bag-in-a-box service. Some are even being shipped in tank to be served "on tap".

Can’t we just say S, M, L, XL?

We all are familiar with the 750mL wine bottle format found on grocer and wine shop shelves. Half bottles or splits, as they are called,  are relatively easy to find too. And most of us have spotted a magnum bottle through locked glass cabinets in finer establishments. It is a rare occasion to see the large, larger and largest bottle sizes except at black tie affairs or exclusive events. Few people know that there are standards for these mega-bottles and each of these standards has a really cool name – many named after biblical kings, for unknown reasons.

Wine bottle size conventions are based on Old World tradition, much like the bottle shapes.  Confusingly (of course), the same king’s name may be used to refer to different size bottles in different regions of France (Bordeaux, Champagne, Burgundy). Here are the large format bottles commonly referred to.

For the names of the larger bottlings, most French regions, and other regions of the world  tend to follow the Champagne and Burgundy terminology, and consequently some Jéroboams (four bottles) may be found. The Bordeaux term may be different for the same sized bottle. The big format bottles are popular with Bordeaux  and upper tier red wine collectors, particularly the eight-bottle sized Impériale. The small amount of air in the bottle (between the cork and the wine) and a the large amount of wine results in a small air to wine ratio. It is this smaller air/wine ratio that allows for a slower development of the wine as it ages when compared with smaller bottle formats.