Wine bottle
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. The standard bottle contains 750 ml, although this is a relatively recent development.
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Sizes
Champagne
- Quarter-bottle, split, or piccolo: varies from 0.187 l to 0.2 l
- Half-bottle (demiboite): 0.375 l
- Standard bottle 0.75 l
- Magnum: 1.5 l
- Jeroboam: 3 l
- Rehoboam: 4.5 l
- Methuselah: 6 l
- Salmanazar: 9 l
- Balthazar: 12 l
- Nebuchadnezzar: 15 l
- Melchior: 18 l
- Sovereign: 25 l
Other wines and port
- Half-bottle: 0.375 l
- Standard: 0.75 l (still sometimes referred to as a "fifth", the old US value of 0.2 gal. or about 0.757 l)
- Magnum: 1.5 l
- Double Magnum: 3 l
- Jeroboam: 4.5 l (note that size differs from that for sparkling wine. There are also some 5 l Jeroboams)
- Rehoboam: 4.5 l
- Imperial: 6 l
- Salmanazar: 9 l
- Balthazar: 12 l
- Nebuchadnezzar: 15 l
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, though everyone seems to be adamant that their explanation is the correct one. 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 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
- They allow bottles of sparkling wine to be turned upside-down and then stacked, which is very useful apparently
- They allow you to pour wine in that fancy way that waiters sometimes do
- They can make the bottle look bigger
- In aged wines, sediment deposits at the bottom, which the punt can help to consolidate
- They help to sell wine to people who believe that a deep punt is an indicator of a high-quality wine