Wine bottle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Wine bottle sizes)
Jump to: navigation, search
A bottle showing the transparent green of many wine bottles


Recently, the bottle has become a standard unit of volume to describe sales in the wine industry, measuring 750 millilitres (26 imp fl oz; 25 US fl oz).[citation needed] However, bottles are produced in a variety of volumes and shapes.

Wine bottles are traditionally sealed with cork, but screw-top caps are becoming popular, and there are several other methods used to seal a bottle.[1][2][3]


The chart below[4] expresses the sizes of various wine bottles in multiples relating to a standard bottle of wine, which is 0.75 litres (0.20 U.S. gal; 0.16 imp gal). Many common sizes are named for Biblical kings and historical figures.


Volume (litres) Ratio Name Notes Champagne Bordeaux Burgundy
0.25 0.33 Chopine Traditional French unit of volume Yes
0.375 0.5 Demi "Half" in French. Also known as a half bottle. Yes Yes Yes
0.378 0.505 Tenth One tenth of a U.S. gallon*
0.5 0.67 Jennie
[citation needed]
0.620 0.83 Clavelin Primarily used for vin jaune.
0.750 1 Standard Yes Yes Yes
0.757 1.01 Fifth One-fifth of a U.S. gallon*
1.0 1.33 Litre Popular size for Austrian wines.
1.5 2 Magnum Yes Yes Yes
3.0 4 Jeroboam (a.k.a. Double Magnum) Biblical, First king of Northern Kingdom. "Jeroboam" has different meanings (that is, indicates different sizes) for different regions in France.[6] Yes Yes Yes
4.5 6 Yes
4.5 6 Rehoboam Biblical, First king of separate Judea Yes Yes
6.0 8 Imperial Yes
6.0 8 Methuselah Biblical, Oldest Man Yes Yes
9.0 12 Mordechai Biblical, Cousin of Esther Queen of Persia Yes Yes
9.0 12 Salmanazar Biblical, Assyrian King[disambiguation needed] Yes Yes Yes
12.0 16 Balthazar One of three Wise Men to present a gift to Jesus after his birth Yes Yes Yes
15.0 20 Nebuchadnezzar Biblical, King of Babylon Yes Yes Yes
18.0 24 Melchior One of three Wise Men to present a gift to Jesus after his birth Yes Yes Yes
20.0 26.66 Solomon Biblical, King of Israel, Son of David Yes
25.0 33.33 Sovereign Yes
27.0 36 Primat or Goliath Biblical stoned by David Yes
30.0 40 Melchizedek Biblical, King of Salem Yes

* For many years, the U.S. standard (non-metric) wine and liquor bottle was the "fifth", meaning one-fifth of a U.S. gallon, or 25.6 U.S. fluid ounces (757 ml; 26.6 imp fl oz). Some beverages also came in tenth-gallon, half-gallon and one-gallon sizes. In 1979, the U.S. adopted the metric system for wine bottles, with the basic bottle becoming 750 ml, as in Europe.[citation needed]


Bocksbeutel shaped wine bottle
Burgundy bottles


  • Schlegel[disambiguation needed] variety, predominantly used in German wine growing regions: similar to Burgundy bottles, but more slender and elongated.
  • German wines from Franconia: the Bocksbeutel bottle.


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. The Moselland company of Germany has a riesling with a bottle in the shape of a house cat.


Most wine bottles standards have a bore (inner neck) diameter of 18.5 at the mouth of the bottle and increase to 21 mm before expanding into the full bottle.


The traditional colours used for wine bottles are:

  • Bordeaux: dark green for reds, light green for dry whites, colourless for sweet whites.
  • Burgundy and the Rhone: dark green.

Clear colourless bottles have recently become popular with white wine producers in many countries, including Greece, Canada and New Zealand. Dark-coloured bottles are most commonly used for red wines, but many white wines also still come in dark green bottles. The main reason for using coloured or tinted glass is that natural sunlight can break down desirable antioxidants such as vitamin c and tannins in a wine over time, which affects storability and can cause a wine to prematurely oxidise. Dark glass can prevent oxidation and increase storage life. It is therefore mostly ready-to-drink white wines with a short anticipated storage lifespan which are bottled in clear colourless bottles.


A paper strip beneath the foil

Commercial corked wine bottles typically have a protective sleeve called a foil (commonly referred to as a "capsule") covering the top of the bottle, the purpose of which is to protect the cork from being gnawed away by rodents or infested with the cork weevil and to serve as collar to catch small drips when pouring. The foil also serves as a decorative element of the bottle's label. Foils were historically made of lead; however, because of research showing that trace amounts of toxic lead could remain on the lip of the bottle and mix with the poured wine,[7] lead foil bottleneck wrapping were slowly phased out, and by the 1990s,[8] most foils were made of tin, heat-shrink plastic (polyethylene or PVC), or aluminium or polylaminate aluminium. Sealing wax is sometimes used, or the foil can be omitted entirely.[9] In the US, the FDA officially banned lead foils on domestic and imported wine bottles as of 1996.[10]




A punt, also known as a kick-up, refers to the dimple at the bottom of a wine bottle. There is no consensus explanation for its purpose. The more commonly cited explanations include:[1]

  • It consolidates sediment deposits in a thick ring at the bottom of the bottle, preventing much/most of it from being poured into the glass; this may be more historical than a functional attribute, since most modern wines contain little or no sediment.[11]
  • It allows bottles to be more easily stacked end to end.[12]
  • Punts are also used to help pour the wine, providing a grip for the thumb on the bottom of the bottle for easy pouring.
  • The claim that the larger the punt the finer the wine in the bottle is an old wives tale which wine experts have dismissed as nonsense.[citation needed]

Environmental impact[edit]

Glass retains its colour on recycling, and the United Kingdom has a large surplus of green glass because it imports a large quantity of wine but produces very little. 1.4 million tonnes are sent to landfill annually.[13]

Glass is a relatively heavy packing material and wine bottles use quite thick glass, so the tare weight of a full wine bottle is a relatively high proportion of its gross weight. The average weight of an empty 75 cl wine bottle is 500 g (and can range from 300 to 900 g), which makes the glass 40% of the total weight of the full bottle.[14] This has led to suggestions that wine should be exported in bulk from producer regions and bottled close to the market. This would reduce the cost of transportation and its carbon footprint, and provide a local market for recycled green glass.[15][16] Less radically, box wine is sold in large-size light cardboard and foil containers, though its use has been restricted to cheaper products in the past and as such retains a stigma. Following declining sales of wine boxes in the UK, in 2009 the Office for National Statistics removed them from its Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.[17] Some wine producers are exploring more alternative packagings such as plastic bottles and tetra packs.[citation needed]

See also[edit]


  4. ^ Wine 101 ::[dead link]
  5. ^ "Champagne Bottle Sizes". Retrieved 7 March 2012. [self-published source]
  6. ^ "Jeroboam Wine Facts". Retrieved 2008-12-26. [self-published source]
  7. ^ Fisher, Lawrence M. (1991-08-02). "Lead Levels in Many Wines Exceed U.S. Standards for Water". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-01-02. 
  8. ^ [1][dead link]
  9. ^ "30 Second Wine Advisor". Retrieved 2010-01-02. [self-published source]
  10. ^ "Justia :: 21 C.F.R. § 189.301 Tin-coated lead foils for wine bottles". 1996-02-08. Retrieved 2010-01-02. 
  11. ^ (MacNeil 2001)
  12. ^ a b "Punt Wine Bottle Indentation". Retrieved 2010-01-02. [self-published source]
  13. ^ Hickman, Leo (2006-05-09). "Is it OK ... to drink wine?". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-11-22. 
  14. ^ "The WRAP Wine Initiative". Retrieved 2011-09-14. 
  15. ^ Lamb, Garth. "Carbon copy". Waste Management & Environment. Retrieved 2007-11-22. "If wine was imported in bulk vats and then bottled locally, the market for the most beneficial recycling option would increase." 
  16. ^ "New Wine Bottle Project" (Press release). British Glass. 15 September 2006. Retrieved 2007-11-22. 
  17. ^ "Chicken in the basket of UK goods". BBC. Retrieved 2013-11-15. "Wine boxes, MP3 players and rentals from DVD hire shops have been removed to make way, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said." 

External links[edit]