Magnum, Jeroboam, Balthazar... These are wine bottle names!?!? Hopefully this chart can help clear up some of the confusion around wine bottle sized and names. As well as the traditional 750ml wine bottle (the size you normally find in supermarkets and wine shops), and the half-bottle (375ml), there are a number of large format wine bottles. Many of these are named after biblical kings. The most frustrating thing about wine bottle names may be the fact that the same name may be used to refer to different size bottles in different regions however. Here are the large format names and sizes.
| Bottle Name | Name's Origin | Champagne | Bordeaux | Burgundy | Volume in Litres |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equivalent standard bottles | |||||
| Piccolo1 | "Small" in Italian | ¼ | n/a | n/a | 0.1875 |
| Chopine | traditional French unit of volume | n/a | ⅓ | n/a | 0.250 |
| Demi² | "Half" in French | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0.375 |
| Clavelin³ | n/a | n/a | n/a | 0.620 | |
| Standard | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.750 | |
| Magnum | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.5 | |
| Marie Jeanne4 | n/a | 3 | n/a | 2.25 | |
| Double Magnum | n/a | 4 | n/a | 3.0 | |
| Jeroboam | Biblical Figure | 4 | 6 | 4 | 3.0/4.5 |
| Rehoboam | Biblical Figure | 6 | n/a | 6 | 4.5 |
| Imperial | n/a | 8 | n/a | 6.0 | |
| Methuselah | Biblical Figure | 8 | n/a | 8 | 6.0 |
| Salmanazar | Biblical Figure | 12 | n/a | 12 | 9.0 |
| Balthazar | New Testament Figure | 16 | 16 | 16 | 12.0 |
| Nebuchadnezzar | Biblical Figure | 20 | 20 | 20 | 15.0 |
| Melchior | New Testament Figure, Jewish surname | 24 | 24 | 24 | 18.0 |
| Solomon | Biblical Figure | 28 | n/a | n/a | 20.0 |
| Sovereign | 33⅓ | n/a | n/a | 25.0 | |
| Primat | 36 | n/a | n/a | 27.0 | |
| Melchizedek | Biblical Figure | 40 | n/a | n/a | 30.0 |
1 Also known as a quarter bottle or snipe.
² Also known as a split.
³ Primarily used in vin jaune
4Also known as a Tregnum or Tappit Hen in the port wine trade
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