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.
Recently, the bottle
has become a standard unit of volume to describe sales in the wine industry,
measuring 750 milliliters (26 imp fl oz;
25 US fl oz). 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.
Many traditional wine bottle sizes
are named for Biblical kings and historical figures. The
chart below lists the sizes of
various wine bottles in multiples relating to a standard bottle of wine, which
is 0.75 liters (0.20 US gal;
0.16 imp gal) (five 150 ml servings). The
"wine glassful"—an official unit of the apothecaries' system of weights—is much
smaller at 2.5 imp fl oz (71 ml).
Most champagne houses are unable to carry out secondary fermentation in bottles larger than a magnum due to
the difficulty in riddling large,
heavy bottles. After the secondary fermentation completes, the champagne must
be transferred from the magnums into larger bottles, which results in a loss of
pressure. Some believe this re-bottling exposes the champagne to greater
oxidation and therefore results in an inferior product compared to champagne
which remains in the bottle in which it was fermented.
COLOR
Clear
colorless bottles have recently become popular with white wine producers in
many countries, including Greece, Canada and New Zealand. Dark-colored bottles are most commonly used for
red wines, but many white wines also still come in dark green bottles. The main
reason for using colored or tinted glass is that natural sunlight can break down desirable antioxidants such
as vitamin c and tannin in a wine over time, which affects stability and can
cause a wine to prematurely oxidize. 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 colorless bottles.
PUNTS
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:
·
It is a historical remnant from the
era when wine bottles were free blown using a blowpipe and pontil.
This technique leaves a punt mark on the base of the bottle; by
indenting the point where the pontil is
attached, this scar would not scratch the table or make the bottle unstable.
·
It 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—the dimple historically allowed
for a larger margin of error.
·
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.
·
It increases the strength of the
bottle, allowing it to hold the high pressure of sparkling wine/champagne.
·
It provides a grip for riddling a bottle of sparkling wine
manually in the traditional champagne production process.
·
It consumes some volume of the
bottle, allowing the bottle to appear larger for the same amount of wine, which
may impress the purchaser.
·
Taverns had a steel pin set
vertically in the bar. The empty bottle would be thrust bottom-end down onto
this pin, puncturing a hole in the top of the punt, guaranteeing the bottle
could not be refilled
·
It prevents the bottle from
resonating as easily, decreasing the likelihood of shattering during
transportation.
·
It allows bottles to be more easily
stacked end to end.
·
Bottles could be stacked in cargo
holds on ships without rolling around and breaking.
·
It makes the bottle easier to clean
prior to filling with wine. When a stream of water is injected into the bottle
and impacts the punt, it is distributed throughout the bottom of the bottle and
removes residues.
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