Ep 238: All About Wine Bottles
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After more hairy details on our crazy and delayed move, and a shout out to UNC Business School, our alma mater for helping when things got tough, we discuss the topic: Glass bottles, which are the most common container for finished wine and their evolution is fascinating!
Photo: Pexels
History
- Antiquity \\u2013 long jars/amphora
- Romans invented blowing glass \\u2013maybe used to serve wine
- 1636 \\u2013 first time glass bottles in post-Roman Britain
- 1690 \\u2013 1720 a typical bottle looked like an onion!
- In the 1730s, binning (storage on wine on its side) became popular and that made cork a better closure \\u2013 kept cork wet and not dried out. The cylindrical shape was popularized!
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Glass making and glass size
- Bottle glass is made by heating together sand harvested from dunes, sodium carbonate, and limestone. If recycled bottles are used, they\\u2019re crushed, which hastens the melting process. Furnaces get to 2,700\\u02daF temps to heat glass enough so you can shape it!
- Size: Larger bottles = slower aging\\xa0
- Standard: 750 ml, half/split is 375 ml
- Magnum: 2 bottles (1.5 L)
- Jerobaum: 4 bottles (3 L)
- Rehoboam: 6 bottles (4.5L)
- Methuselah: 8 bottles (6 L)
- Salmanazar: 12 bottles (9 L)
- Balthazar: 16 bottles (12 L)
- Nebuchadnezzar: 20 bottles (15 L)
- (I forgot to mention Melchior! 24 bottles)
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The Marketing behind bottles\\u2026
- Regions adopt a specific bottle size and shape
- Thicker glass makes a bottle stronger, which is useful for sparkling, and large-format bottles, but for most wines it\\u2019s for perception and the extra cost is passed on to you
- Shapes:
- Burgundy bottles \\u2013 sloping shoulders, long neck
- Bordeaux \\u2013 big shoulders
- Flutes \\u2013 no punt
- Champagne bottles \\u2013 thick because they have to protect 6 atmospheres of pressure
- Punt: is an inverse indentation. This is important for stability in Champagne bottles, but doesn\\u2019t matter for other bottles. A deep punt requires more glass to make, again the cost is passed to us! The flute shape has no punt!
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- We wrap with a discussion of bottle color \\u2013 from brown, to dark green, to deadleaf to clear, we break it all down!
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