On punts or dimples....

Well hell, it's early here on the Mojave.....

Try this:

Sounds right to me. Now on to the Fiasco. You know what a fiasco is, right? (No, not a disaster, the wine bottle with a round bottom.) That's actually where the disaster term came from; the bottle design is, well - dumb- and just asking for trouble. That's why they wrapped wicker around them, to keep the bottle upright.

Before that came the amphora, which had a pointed bottom. You dug it into sand or dirt. The things people go to to store wine...

Joe

I love this thread - opinion in the absence of absolutes is often more interesting to me than facts and absolutes themselves. Thanks for those factoids Joe, I hadn't a clue about the derivation of 'fiasco' and that's fascinating. Bizarre that the flat bottom wasn't necessarily the first designed! I guess even a rounded or pointed base to a rigid bottle was an improvement on the wineskin..?

I would have thought that it would be relatively easy to blow a bottle with a flat base by simply grounding the bottle once blown and before the glass cooled - but maybe not.

Thanks Casey too! It was refreshing to read the itchysquirrel piece too. I like the way that humans seek validation for ideas by effort alone when nothing else turns up to show them what is what! I wonder what the ebay purchaser will do with his punt-measuring-rod? Just goes to show doesn't it.

I assumed that the dimple was to allow the pouring technique commonly deployed by waiters. However, since it requires a rather elegant and contrived technique to properly accomplish (particularly when pouring from a full bottle) it makes sense that this could be an adaptation to form rather than a reason to make a bottle in this way.

Many thanks for an interesting read anyhoo...

Jim

I've heard from a number of sources that the punt was an artifact of the way bottles were crated for shipment many years ago. This didn't appear to be mentioned on the referenced site, however, the comment about stacking sparkling wine may have been related.

Greg

Thanks muchly, fascinating research, truly. One question....do wines really throw a new sediment just cus they are old? If bottled brilliant (as one would hope top notch wines are) even if they threw a sediment over ten years it would surely be almost immeasurable given the fact the wine appeared brilliant at bottling, no?

I cannot for the life of me remember the brand but it was a Chianti or Borolo that went for $40 or so back in the mid-60s. The restaurant was Gaido's on the boulevard on Galveston Island, Texas. I remember the wine steward pouring only four glasses to the table before emptying the dregs into a fairly large goblet. He swirled it around to coat the inside of the glass with the sediment from the bottom of the bottle and proudly handed it to my Uncle. The wine as I recall was nothing special (at least to me) but I remember the formalities as being a darn good show. Yes, good wine will continue to deposit stuff in the bottom of the bottle. Thunderbird doesn't stay in the bottle long enough.

Whites maybe All the best reds (in Australia anyway) go nowhere near a filter. The bottling plants use a plain screen or sieve. As the winemakers say its only there to stop the occasional stray grape picker or grapevine limb out of the bottle.

Anton

Reds will throw a sediment regardless of the clarity once they get old enough. No one in any old, established wine community (like Europe for example) considers that a defect; they actually consider it a mark of authenticity as to the age of a wine. It can be very fine, not necessarily crystalline.

Joe