For the last five days I have been completly fixated on a bottle of German Riesling in Magnum format. The wine is a Donhoff 2003 Oberhauser Brucke Spatlese for $109 and is only the second German wine that I have ever seen in a magnum format. This things is crazy! It stands like three fet tall, is somwhat falac and peers over any other wine in the store with presence and mistique not unlike the Eiffle Tower. My intsint is to buy one and just cherish the oddity of such a bottle; not to mention a great producer in a highly anticipated vintage. My only hold out is a severe concern for how to store one of these puppies. This is a wine that I would obviouslt wnat to bring out with much adoo many years later when it is mature. The thought of even bring a bottle like that out of the store, onto the NYC subay and past my girlfriend is daunting enough, but what to do with such a monster for a decade?
German Wine; Magnum
Dec 05, 2004
22 Replies
Lay down in the cellar like all your other bottles?
M.
In the US, I seldom have seen German wines, especially the better ones, in large format bottles. Also I have seldom seen reviews that mention a large format bottle. Although I have many German wines stored, none are in large formats. However 1/2 bottles are very common for some of the better German wines such as BA and TBA. These wines are so rich that a little goes a long way. The best I can tell, large format bottles have never been nearly as popular in Germany for their wines as in France, especially for Bordeaux and Champagne. A large format German wine might age a bit slower than a 750 ml bottle, but probably not enough to get excited about.
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Liter size bottles of German wine used to be very common here and they caused some confusion because of the color change on the Mozels. Are the half size German wine bottles 350ml or 375ml?
Before 1971 German bottle size varied quite a bit from region to region. The full bottles I have stored since the 1971 vintage give 700 ml on the label printed in Germany. I have only checked a few. However a
1/2 bottle of 1976 Bernkasteer Doctor TBA from Thanish gives 350 ml on the main label printed in Germany. But a 1/2 bottle of Wallhäuser Mühlenberg Grauer Burgunder Eiswein from Prinz zu Salm-Dalberg's Schloss Wallhausen gives 375 ml on the German printed label. I have not had time to pull enough bottles to see whch is most common, or perhaps one of the labels has a typo. In any event, I can not get very excited about a variation of only 5 ml.Yes, some German and other wines often were seen in L sized botles in the US in the past. The ones I saw were mostly low end wines. I consider a L bottle as a single bottle size, but some might consider it a large format. Then I remember some very fancy bottles with very common wines that many bought for the bottle. I still have a gallon-sized botle of Frescobaldi Chianti(vintage tag unreadable) that is a big bulb with a very long neck and stands 4 feet tall. It at least predates the time when labels had to convert from English units to metric units for the US market. I have seen low end wines from Italy in bottles the shape of a grape cluster.
When you get into very old wines, there is nearly a continuous spectrum of bottle sizes. Even many close-by wine regions used diferent bottle sizes in the past.
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I beg to differ. 700 ml was the standard. I've never seen anything else.
Quite clear: 350 ml is exactly half of 700 ml.
Why should this be a typo? In the 1980/90s the EU standardized bottle sizes, making 750 ml the norm (ruling out 700 ml), 375 ml being exactly the half, once again. 750 and 375 ml bottles had been around much longer, but were little used.
Btw, bottles for comestible liquids have to show their size on the bottle itself, to be found near the base of the bottle or right on the bottom.
It's 5 times that: 25 ml.
I beg to differ once again. With the famous exception of the clavelin bottle for vin jaune in the jura (62 ml), every standard sized bottle I ever have seen ran between 70 and 75 ml. Italian pre-standard bottles are 73 ml.
M.
I believe that some Bordeaux bottles also used this size.
Yes. From an unrepresentative sample of Bdx bottles and rescued labels:
1975: 73cl, 1982: 75cl. So the change seems to have happened somewhere between 1976 and 1981.Here are some more numbers for bottle sizes taken directly from my wine bottles. The 1976 Schloss Vollrads TBA is 700 ml while the1979 Oestricher Lenchen Beerenauslese Eiswein from the Deinhard estate is 750 ml, both on the label and on the extreme lower side of the bottle(not bottom). Quinta de Serrado Bual 1827 is 750ml.
Fonseca's Torna-Viagem Setubal is 500 ml., while a full bottle of their
25yr old Setubal and also their 1934 vintage is 750 ml. Monimpex Tokaji Aszu Esszencia 1957 is 500 ml. as well as a Tokaji Wine Trust Co. 1983 5 P. A half bottle of 1967 Yquem is 375 ml on the glass of the bottle along the bottom side(not thebottom), while the importer's add on lablel gives it as 360 ml (12 Fl. Oz). Either the importer label is a mistake, or it more accurately reflects the volume of wine in the bottle rather than the maximum capacity of the bottle.Many very old bottles were hand blown and as a result varied somewhat in size. Also many older bottles do not contain a size mark on the glass. Heaven knows what is the size of my Constatia from either 1791s or 1809
- close to a half bottle from the looks of the bottle. In addition some wines sold in English speaking countries in the past were sold in English units. The one gallon bottle of old Chianti I mentioned in my first post is such an example. And then there was the "fifth", or 1/5 gallon that was used before metric units were used in the US. Also there are some differences in the US and British volume measurements.
I did make a typo in the difference between a 375 and 350 ml bottle whic shold be apparent to anyone reading my post.
I believe I may have sme more informaton on bottle sizes in old books in the attic. I have wasted enough time on thismatter, but I may try to see what else I can dig up.
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Change probably has occurred with some kind of transition period. Now I remember that Champagne bottles used to be 800 ml (but not filled to the rim), so older bottles until the mid 1970s bear a content of 780 ml, mags were 1580 ml, jéroboams 2980 ml. I definitely remember Bollinger 1973 had 780 ml, while Bollinger
1975 was 750 ml.M.
Both the Beaulieu 1969 and 1971 Private Reserve Caberet Sauvignons have
4/5 quart on the glass at the bottom of the bottle side. This is an US quart and not a British Imperial quart which is somewhat larger. This size of bottle was known as a "fifth" in the US. By 1974 a Charles Krug Private Selection Cabernet Sauvignon has 750 ml(25.4 Fl. Oz.) on the glass. A 1974 Beaulieu Private Reserve CS in haf bottle has 375 ml(12.7 Fl. Oz.) on the glass. The early 70s seem to have been a transition time for conversion from English to metric units for wine bottles in the US.Fifths were so common at one time that there were jokes about them. A cartoon from the 1950's era shows a drunk in a grocery store asking for a fifth of milk. Of course milk was sold in quarts and gallons - not fifths.
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snip
I like the one about Baptists ( I am sorry if this offends anyone), but the saying goes
Where there is a fourth (Man, Woman, 2 children) there is always a fifth.
Walter
The 1967 Collares from D. J. Silva has a capacity of 650 ml (22 Fl. Oz.) according to the Portugese label. There are some code markings on the glass at the bottom of the bottle, but no capacity.
It would appear that there is quite a range in bottle sizes in my cellar even not considering many old bottles that have no markings to indicate a capacity.
Another consideration is that many Bordeaux and other wines were bottled in England, Belgium, and elsewhere in the past. I do not have any such bottles. However it would not surprise me if some of the old English bottled wines use English Imperial volume, and that bottle sizes might or might not be the same as French bottled wines of that era.
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700 ml, 750 ml, 350 ml and 375 ml are (or have been) standards, as 500 ml, especially for Tokaji Aszú.
If you take a close look at the bottles, you will find - at least on younger European glassware - something like "75 cl 55 mm". That indicates that the bottle, filled to 55 millimetres from the top, the content will be no less than 750 ml (= 75 cl). Sleeker bottles tend to have higher mm figures, I found one with 70 mm, even a fancy thick one with 75 mm. A Spanish and a French bordeaux type bottle both show 63 mm.
For those not familiar with US measures: A fifth is the equivalent of 757 ml.
This is what Raymond Dumay says in his 1967 Paris edition of "Le Guide du Vin" (cited from the German edition "Französische Weine", p. 240), well before standardisation (I take only the full bottle size, not parts or multiples, and give the name):
900 ml Saint Galmier (never heard of) 750 ml Anjou, Touraine, Nantes (bouteille) 720 ml Alsace (flute) 620 ml Jura (clavelin, for vin jaune only) 800 ml Burgundy*) (bourguignonne or maconnaise) 750 ml Bordeaux (bouteille or bordelaise) 800 ml Champagne (bouteille)*) He says that generally 750 ml bottles are used, and that the content must be stated on bottles or label.
M.
Some mention has been made of Champagne. Patrick Forbes published a book called Champagne in GB with a coyright of 1967. He gives bottle sizes that have been used for Champagne as:
quarter-bottle: 6 1/2 fluid ozs; half-bottle: 13 fluid ozs; imperial pint: 19 1/2 fluid ozs; bottle: 26 fluid ozs; magnum: 2 bottles; double magnum or jeroboam: 4 bottles; triple magnum or rehoboam: 6 bottles; quadruple magnum or methuselah: 8 bottles; salmanezah: 12 bottles; balthazar: 16 bottles; nebuchadnezzar: 20 bottles;
Some of the above bottle sizes were no longer on the market at the time of writing this book. I assume he uses British ounces. If so, you multiply by 28.41225 to get ml. That would be 739 ml for a single bottle. There is a remote chance that the ozs used are US, because although printed in GB, the book was by Reynal and Company in assocition with Willam Morrow and Company of New York who could have insisted on US ozs for the book distributed in the US. You multiply US ozs by 29.572702 to get ml which would give 769 ml in a bottle. I believe the imperial pint size bottle many also have sometimes been used for Port in GB in the distant past.
I note that a few German wines now are being offered in 500 ml bottles. A catalog from Brown Derby that I just received listed two auslese wines in the 500 ml size in the $US50 range, so we are not speaking of cheap wine.
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Raymond Dumay lists these as follows:
200 ml Quart 400 ml Demi-bouteille 600 ml Médium 800 ml BouteilleThe larger formats aligns with Patrick Forbes.
Since Champagne bottles were (and are) uniformly French (no way of british bottling, of course ;-), I guess Forbes' figures are simply rounded.
Bottles and half bottles of champagne are very common. Quarter bottles can be seen on airlines (187.5 ml), they are the only ones exempt from the prerequisite of being closed with a bark cork. I have to confess never having seen a 3/4 bottle, not even at those champagne houses where they show a full range of empty bottles. The "Médium" most certainly never was very popular.
M.
A nice site to see about bottle sizes is the one from Robèrt Koopman see:
formatting link
in Dutch but I'm sure if you want,. that he is willing to translate if you ask him to
greetings
Jenny
------------------------------------------------- Bonum Vinum Laetificat Cor!!!!
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"Cwdjrx _" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3172.bay.webtv.net...
Not just a few. It has been a tendency for some years that Ausleses, especially the best ones, are being sold in 500ml bottles. Anders
"Jenny" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net...
No translation needed, very clear, thank you. Anders
presence and
The matter of bottle sizes has been discussed quite extensively in the thread, but let me wager a comment on the wine, specifically on your plan to lay it for a decade before drinking.
I for one - without having tasted the wine that you mention, and in spite of my general high regard for the region Nahe, the vinyard Oberhaeuser Bruecke and the producer Hermann Donnhoff - I would not necessarily plan on keeping a Spätlese for ten years before enjoying it.
A general question on experts of German wines: would not one expect a higher production of Spätlese and Auslese wines in a warm year like
2003? Should this not push down the prices of these wines (from the "common or garden" vineries, if not for wines from the likes of Hermann Donnhoff, Kuenstler or Moenchhof)?Cheers
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