Preferred Wine Cellars
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The History of Wine Bottles
Wine used to come in clay flasks rather than wine bottles in the days of Mesopotamia and winemaking in Egypt and these amphorae would be stamped with the vintage of the wine, the type of wine and the name of the vineyard. This practice continued for many centuries, through the Grecian winemaking years, right up until the Romans came to power.
Blown Glass Bottles
The Romans invented glass blowing and glass was discovered to be a good material for wine storage. You could see what wine was in there and it did not affect the flavor of the wine. The only problem was the method of making the bottles, since glass blowing was the only way to use glass at the time.
This also meant that the sizes of the bottles varied and consumers could never be sure if they were getting an extra amount of wine or a smaller amount. This is why it was illegal to sell wine bottles for a time. Consumers preferred to bring their own containers to be filled from the barrel in the wine merchant's store.
As time went on, different wine bottle shapes and sizes were experimented with and colored glass were developed. The first wine bottles were onion-shaped because this was easy to blow but a flatter, longer shape was found to be better for storing wine on its side. This helped to keep the cork moist and encouraged the wine to age well. Bottles held about one and a half pints because this was easy to make and also easy to carry when full.
Chateau Bottling
The next stage was "chateau bottling" which meant the estate would bottle the wine at the source rather than give the barrels to the wine merchant to put in containers. Some wine merchants were unscrupulous and would cheat customers so chateau bottling put an end to that.
Not all merchants took steps to avoid oxidization either, which meant that wine varied enormously in quality. Most fine wine is bottled where it is produced today (and so is port wine). That has been the case since 1974.
Typical Wine Bottle Shapes
The industry discovered how to make standard size bottles in the nineteenth century and regions settled on their own preferred wine bottle sizes. The standard size was just over one and a half pints, although smaller and larger bottles such as half-bottles and magnums were also made. Until the 1940s wines from Champagne and Burgundy came in relatively large wine bottles and Beaujolais came in a comparatively small one pint bottle.
The United States set a requirement in 1979 that all wine bottles should hold 750 milliliters, which is nearly the same as an American Fifth. Winemakers were asked to settle on one size so importing could be easier.
A Bordeaux bottle is straight-sided and has a curved shoulder. The shoulder is good for catching sediment. This bottle is the most common type today and it is easy to stack. The Burgundy bottle has tapering sides down about two thirds of its height and it has no shoulder. A Champagne bottle is similar to a Burgundy bottle but it is heavier and has a wider base because of the pressurization inside.
