BOTTLES

Things you didn't know you wanted to know... there are known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns and... DECEMBER'S INTERESTING TRIVIA PAGE

There is so much information about – well, everything – that we are only scratching the surface. In this month’s Trivia, which will have to be continued later, you will find:

HOW BOTTLES ARE MADE
CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE SIZES – names and history etc
WINE BOTTLE SHAPES
Information about PUNTS and RIDDLING

 

MAKING GLASS BOTTLES

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CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE SIZES

Piccolo (1/4 bottle) 187ml
Italian for ‘small’. 187ml is approximately two glassfuls – Champagne glasses usually hold around 125ml but it is not usual to fill them.

Demi (1/2 bottle) 375ml
French for “half,” and also known affectionately as a ‘Fillette’, or ‘little girl.’ At 375 milliliters, 4 glasses, the equivalent of half a bottle.

Magnum (2 bottles) 1.5 litres
Latin for “great,” this describes a bottle that is twice the standard size and yields 16 glasses.

The names of the six largest Champagne bottles are of Biblical origin:

Jereboam (4 bottles) 3 litres
Jeroboam (actually Jeroboam II), was the King of Israel during the year of Rome's founding (753 BC)

Rehoboam (6 bottles) 4.5 litres
A son of Solomon, Rehoboam (meaning "the clan is enlarged" according to Willard Espy) became king of Judah in 933 BC.

Methuselah (8 bottles) 6 litres
Methuselah was an antediluvian patriarch described in the Old Testament as having lived 969 years and whose name is synonymous with great age. He may well have evolved from a character of earlier Sumerian legend who lived for 65,000 years.

Salmanazar (12 bottles) 9 litres
Shalmaneser (alternatively spelled Salmanazar) was an Assyrian monarch who reigned around 1250 BC.

Balthazar(16 bottles) 12 litres
Balthazar ("King of Treasures") is the traditional name of one of the Three Wise Men, the other two being Melchior ("King of Light") and Caspar ("The White One"). Many scholars nowadays tend to characterize the trio not as kings but rather as Zoroastrian priests, while others speculate that at least one of them was a king -- namely Azes II of Bactria who reigned from 35 BC to 10 AD. Whatever their occupations, legend and German tourist brochures have it that the Three Wise Men -- or at the very least their skulls -- lie buried in a golden shrine at Cologne Cathedral.

Nabuchadnezzar (20 bottles) 15 litres
Nebuchadnezzar, originally nabu-kudurri-usur meaning "Nabu protect the boundary," became King of the Chaldean Empire in 604 BC. He was actually the second Nebuchadnezzar; a less celebrated Nebuchadnezzar I preceded him by 500 years.

Melchizedek (40 bottles) 30 litres
is an enigmatic figure twice mentioned in the the Old Testament. Melchizedek is mentioned as the King of Salem, and priest of God Most High, in the time of the biblical patriarch Abram. He brought out bread and wine, blessed Abram, and received tithes from him, [Genesis 14:18-20]. Reference is made to him in Psalm 110:4 where the victorious ruler is declared to be "priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." This size bottle should yield around 320 glasses.
Big bottles can be difficult to handle with the average full Nebuchadnezzar, for example, weighing in at around 38kg (84 lb) which means that the bottle itself weighs more than the Champagne it contains. The bottle weighs about 23kg (51 lb)

There are occasionally exceptions to these standard bottle types. Sometimes bottles of different sizes and shapes are used for special occasions or for special cuvées. For example, Pol Roger made a 20 fluid ounce/ 60cl. bottle (imperial pint) specially for Sir Winston Churchill, which his manservant brought him each morning at 11 am. Extremely rare is the 18 litre, 24 bottle Solomon (Salomon in French), and even rarer is the gigantic 27 litre, 36 bottle Primat (pronounced "preemah"), which weighs in at 65 kilos!

Big bottles have a novelty value, but because of the difficulty in moving such a large mass for riddling and disgorgement (a full Nebuchadnezzar weighs 38 kilos!), in most houses the secondary fermentation is carried out in magnums. The wine is then decanted into the larger bottles. This inevitably results in a loss of pressure. Some would say that there is a chance of more oxidation as a result of this, and that Champagne from a giant bottle is inferior to that from the magnum it was fermented in.

A notable exception to this practice is the house of Drappier, who are very much the big bottle specialists. They carry out bottle fermentation in even the very largest sized bottles. Imagine riddling and disgorging a Primat by hand! Michel Drappiersays that an empty Primat bottle costs around £400! They have to be specially made, and also pressure tested so as to withstand more than 90lbs. per sq. inch (6 bar).

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WINE BOTTLE SHAPES

Each year well over one billion wine bottles are made around the world. An explanation of what you may expect from the shape and color of a wine bottle on your merchant shelves can be helpful.

Bordeaux Style
The most common type bottle used is the Bordeaux bottle. The bottle shape is tall with high shoulders and is straight sided. It is a favourite of almost all wine producing countries. Green glass is used for red wines and clear glass for whites. This bottle shape represents the classic Bordeaux soft reds, and dry or sweet whites.

Burgundy Style
A slope-shoulder bottle hints of a full-bodied red wine characterized by the wines of Burgundy and Italy. These are sturdy, heavy bottles, with a slightly fatter girth than other wine bottles - although you may only notice this if stacking them. This shape is also widely used throughout the New World for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Alsacian
This bottle is long and slender. It has something frivolous, a bottle with a lively radiation. The Alsacian bottle is just as the Mozel bottle made out of green glass. It is used for wines such as Riesling, Gewurtztraminer and Pinot.

Rhine and Mozel
The Rhine (Hock) and Mozel bottle is identical in shape to the Alsacian bottle, slender and fine in form. However, the Mozel bottle is made with green glass and the Rhine bottle from brown glass. Wine from the Rhine ('Hock') spends its life in a bottle similar in shape to the Mosel/Alsace bottle. Once again, however, the style of wine can vary, and a little label knowledge is required.


Champagne
The familiar Champagne bottle is the heavy bottomed, thick-lipped, dark green bottle used for the world-famous beverage. The Champagne bottle shape is the only one that has a compelling scientific justification behind it. It has thicker glass that is able to withstand the higher pressure that is found with Champagne (up to 90 psi).

Fortified Wine Bottle
Fortified wine bottles used for Port and Sherry are sturdy and typically have a bulge in the neck supposedly in order to help capture the sediment, as the wine is decanted. Many of these wines, especially if for drinking young, would be sealed with a cork stopper rather than a long cork.

Rhône
Similar in style to the Burgundy, but not so fat. In addition, some may bear a coat of arms on the neck, particularly Châteauneuf du Pape. The traditional Côtes du Rhône bottle is similar in shape, but with more angular sloping shoulders. New World Shiraz may have a similar bottle, but often this is not the case.

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PUNT

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RIDDLING

Le Remueur: 1889 engraving of the man engaged in the laborious daily task of turning each bottle a fraction [Wikipeda.org]
After aging (a minimum from one and a half to three years), the sediment (lees) must be consolidated for removal. The bottles undergo a process known as riddling (remuage in French). In this stage the bottles are placed on special racks called pupitres. This places the bottles at a 45 degrees with the cork pointed down. Every few days the bottles are given a slight shake and turn and dropped back into the pupitres (eventually the angle is increased). The drop back into the rack causes a slight tap, pushing sediments toward the neck of the bottle. In about 6 to 8 weeks the position of the bottle is pointed straight down with sediment in the neck of the bottle. This manual way of riddling sparkling wine is still used for Prestige Cuvées in Champagne, but has otherwise been largely abandoned because of the high labour costs. Mechanised riddling equipment called gyropalettes are used instead.

 

 

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