Examples of Burgundy(left) and Bordeaux style wine bottles from the Languedoc.

A wine bottle is a bottle used for holding wine, generally made of glass. Some wines are fermented in the bottle, others are bottled only after fermentation. They come in a large variety of sizes, several named for Biblical kings and other figures. The standard bottle contains 750 mL, although this is a relatively recent development. Wine bottles are usually sealed with cork, but screw-top caps are becoming popular, and there are several other methods used to seal a bottle. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Chardonnay vineyards in the south of the Côte de Beaune surrounding the town of Meursault. ... Bordeaux with sub-wine regions A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. ... Coat of arms of the province of Languedoc, now being used as an official flag by the Midi-Pyrénees region as well as by the city of Toulouse Languedoc (pronounced ) (Lengadòc (pronounced ) in Occitan) is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions... Reusable glass milk bottles A bottle is a small container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a mouth. ... Glass can be made transparent and flat, or into other shapes and colors as shown in this sphere from the Verrerie of Brehat in Brittany. ... A glass of red wine This article is about the alcoholic beverage. ... Beer fermenting at a brewery. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... The litre or liter (U.S. spelling, see spelling differences) is a unit of volume. ... A cork stopper for a wine bottle Champagne corks Varnished cork tiles can be used for flooring, as a substitute for linoleum or tiles. ... Alternative Wine Closures are substitutes used in the wine industry for sealing wine bottles in place of traditional cork closures. ...

Sizes

Side-by-side comparison of champagne bottles. (L to R) On ladder: magnum, full, half, quarter. On floor: Balthazar, Salmanazar, Methuselah, Jeroboam.

See also: Wine bottle nomenclature

Veuve Clicquot bottle size display. ... Veuve Clicquot bottle size display. ... Look up magnum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Balthazar (also spelled Balthasar), is a traditional name for one of the anonymous Three Wise Men in the Gospel of Matthew. ... A Salmanazar is the name given to an over-sized bottle of French wine consisting of 12 standard bottles (8 litres), particularly used in reference to bottles of Champagne of that size. ... Methuselah or Metushélach (Hebrew: מְתוּשֶׁלַח / מְתוּשָׁלַח, Standard  / Tiberian  /  ; Man of the dart, or alternatively when he dies, it shall be sent) is the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. ... Jeroboam (increase of the people), the son of Nebat an Ephrathite (1 Kings 11:26-39), was the first king of the break-away ten tribes or Kingdom of Israel, over whom he reigned twenty-two years. ... Wine bottle nomeclature relates to the various names given to sizes of wine bottles. ...

Champagne

• Quarter-bottle (piccolo, or fairhead): from 0.187 L to 0.2 L
• Half-bottle (demiboite): 0.375 L
• Standard bottle 0.75 L
• Magnum: 1.5 L (equiv. 2 Bottles)
• Jeroboam: 3 L (equiv. 4 Bottles)
• Rehoboam: 4.5 L (equiv. 6 Bottles)
• Methuselah: 6 L (equiv. 8 Bottles)
• Salmanazar: 9 L (equiv. 12 Bottles)
• Balthazar: 12 L (equiv. 16 Bottles)
• Nebuchadnezzar: 15 L (equiv. 20 Bottles)
• Melchior (also called Solomon): 18 L (equiv. 24 Bottles)
• Sovereign: 25 L (equiv. 33 1/3 Bottles)
• Primat: 27 L (equiv. 36 Bottles)
• Melchizedek: 30 L (equiv. 40 Bottles)
• Murgatroyd: 50 L (equiv. 66 2/3 Bottles)

This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

Other wines and port

A bottle showing the translucent green of many wine bottles

• Split: 0.187 L
• Half-bottle: 0.375 L
• Standard: 0.75 L^ǂ
• Magnum: 1.5 L
• Double Magnum: 3 L
• Jeroboam: 4.5 L^§
• Rheoboam: 4.5 L
• Box: 5 L
• Imperial: 6 L
• Salmanazar: 9 L
• Balthazar: 12 L
• Nebuchadnezzar: 15 L
• Melchior 18 L
• Murgatroyd 50 L

^ǂ Sometimes referred to as a "fifth", the old US value of 0.2 gal or 0.757 L.
^§ Size is different from champagne Jeroboams. There are also some 5 L variants. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1536 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1536 pixel, file size: 1. ... The gallon (abbreviation: gal) is a unit of volume. ...

Shapes

Burgundy (dark purple) bottles

Wine producers in Spain, France and Germany follow the tradition of their local areas in choosing the shape of bottle most appropriate for their wine. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (537x810, 94 KB) Author: User:Limegreen 2 bottles of Red Burgundy from Gevrey Chambertin, Cote dOr, Burgundy. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (537x810, 94 KB) Author: User:Limegreen 2 bottles of Red Burgundy from Gevrey Chambertin, Cote dOr, Burgundy. ...

• Port, sherry, and Bordeaux varieties: straight-sided and high-shouldered with a pronounced punt. Port and sherry bottles may have a bulbous neck to collect any residue.
• Burgundies and Rhône varieties: tall bottles with sloping shoulders and a smaller punt.
• Rhine (also known as hock or hoch), Mosel, and Alsace varieties: narrow and tall with little or no punt.
• Champagne and other sparkling wines: thick-walled and wide with a pronounced punt and sloping shoulders.
• In Germany the Bocksbeutel bottle shape is generally reserved for higher-quality wines from Franconia. (See Frankenwein (in German)

Many North and South American, South African, and Australasian wine producers select the bottle shape they wish to associate their wines with. For instance, a producer who believes his wine is similar to Burgundy may choose to bottle his wine in Burgundy-style bottles. A glass of tawny port. ... Sherry solera For other uses, see Sherry (disambiguation). ... Bordeaux with sub-wine regions A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. ... Chardonnay vineyards in the south of the Côte de Beaune surrounding the town of Meursault. ... The Rhône wine region is first divided into north and south. ... Rheingau valley with the River Rhein The Rheingau (in English: Rhine District) is the hill country on the north side of the Rhine River between Wiesbaden and Rüdesheim near Frankfurt, reaching from the western Taunus to the Rhine. ... Hock is an English word for German wine, short for the now obsolete word hockamore (hochheimer), after the German town of Hochheim on the Main. ... Mosel-Saar-Ruwer is a German wine-growing-region in the valleys of the rivers Moselle, Saar and Ruwer near Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate. ... Alsatian wine has a long history. ... Champagne is often consumed as part of a celebration Champagne is a sparkling wine produced by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of wine to effect carbonation. ...

Other producers (both in and out of Europe) have chosen idiosyncratic bottle styles for marketing purposes. Pere-Anselme markets its Châteauneuf-du-Pape in bottles that appear half-melted. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a town and commune in the Vaucluse département in Provence, in southern France. ...

The home wine maker may use any bottle, as the shape of the bottle does not affect the taste of the finished product. The sole exception is in producing sparkling wine, where thicker-walled bottles should be used to handle the excess pressure. There is a dip at the end of a wine bottle because back in the 1900 a british explorer thought it would be easier to pour it if he could slide his fingers in the bottle's bottem. Grow and harvest grapes. ... A glass of sparkling wine A Sparkling wine cork It has been suggested that Spumante, Frizzante, Sekt and Cremant be merged into this article or section. ...

Colors

Bottles of Wine

The traditional colors used for wine bottles are: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1600x1067, 323 KB) Please see the file description page for further information. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1600x1067, 323 KB) Please see the file description page for further information. ...

• Bordeaux: dark green for reds, light green for dry whites, clear for sweet whites.
• Burgundy and the Rhone: dark green.
• Mosel and Alsace: dark to medium green, although some producers have traditionally used amber.
• Rhine: amber, although some producers have traditionally used green.

Clear bottles have recently become popular with white wine producers in many countries, including Greece, Canada and New Zealand. Most red wine worldwide is still bottled in green glass.

Punts

A punt, also known as a kick-up, is the term used to refer to the dimple at the bottom of a wine bottle. There is no consensus as to the reason why wine bottles today have punts. The more commonly cited explanations are:

The punt as a historical artifact

• They are a historical remnant of old-fashioned glass-blowing techniques
• They once had the function of making the bottle less likely to topple over. A bottle designed with a flat bottom only needs a small imperfection to make it unstable. In the past, it may have been safer to give the bottle a dimple to allow for a larger margin of error
• They once had (and may still have) the function of strengthening the bottle, particularly useful in the case of sparkling wine

The punt as having a function

• It consolidates sediment deposits in a thick ring at the bottom of the bottle, preventing it from being poured into the glass
• It allows a bottle of sparkling wine to be turned upside-down and then stacked (depending on its shape)
• It increases the strength of the bottle, allowing it to hold the high pressure of sparkling wine/champagne
• It can make the bottle look bigger, impressing purchasers
• It holds the bottles in place on pegs of a conveyor belt as they go through the filling process in manufacturing plants
• The punt is also known as the section which accommodates the pourer's thumb for stability and ease of pouring.

References

www.champagne.com Keywords - Bottle Capacities. Retrieved on 2007-05-23. 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... May 23 is the 143rd day of the year (144th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Wine bottle nomenclature
• Glass Container Industry
• Tunc
• Alternative wine closures

Wine bottle nomeclature relates to the various names given to sizes of wine bottles. ... Glass bottles for cucumber slices Glass containers are a common part of everyday life - we enjoy beverages such as water, soft drink, juice, beer, wine, spirit from bottles - jams and spreads from jars. ... Image:PINT-GLASS.gif A glass with a 1cm tall tunc The Tunc of a glass beaker is a term colloquial to the Midlands of the United Kingdom that is used to describe the thick deposit of glass that forms the base of the vessel. ... Alternative Wine Closures are substitutes used in the wine industry for sealing wine bottles in place of traditional cork closures. ...

External links

• Wine Bottle Shapes, from CellarNotes

• Wine Bottle Shapes, from The Wine Doctor