If you’re thinking of transforming your basement into a home wine cellar, you’re not alone. The installation of wine cellars at home is a booming business, especially in the luxury housing market. When mapping out your cellar, you may want to know the size of a standard wine bottle. Ninety percent of your home wine collection will likely consist of standard-size bottles.
The first dimension to consider is the height of a standard wine bottle. Some shelving companies make their shelving only ten inches deep, which does not protect the full 11½-inch height of a standard bottle. Be sure to accommodate the full height than a standard wine bottle, because you don’t want your precious wine bottles protruding from the neck.
The other dimensions of a bottle of wine
A standard wine bottle contains 750 milliliters of wine and is approximately 11.5 inches tall. At the base, its diameter is 27/8 to 3 inches. From bottom to top, its sides are straight, but near the top, about three-fourths of the way up, it has a rounded shoulder. This is often called a burgundy bottle because it is the usual size and shape of a bottle of red wine from that region of France.
The content of a standard bottle is approximately 25 ounces, so if you serve five-ounce servings, one bottle will yield approximately five glasses of wine. The size of a serving is arbitrary, but according to the American Medical Association, “…A standard drink is any beverage that contains approximately one-half ounce (13.7 grams or 1.2 tablespoons) of pure alcohol. Generally, this amount of pure alcohol is found in five ounces of wine.
Non-standard wine bottle sizes
divisions and halvesNote: Some bottlers and vineyards offer smaller sizes equivalent to half a bottle or even a quarter bottle. A “split” is a quarter of a standard bottle, containing about six ounces of wine, a little more than a serving. Dividers measure 7 inches tall and 2 inches in diameter. A half, as you might guess, is half the volume of a standard bottle, holding 13 ounces of wine. Measures 9½ inches tall with a 2¼” diameter at the base.
Magnum: One magnum of wine equals two bottles, or about 50 ounces. The magnum is 13½ inches tall and requires a special shelf in your cellar. The base of the magnum is 4 inches in diameter.
Big bottle: If you are entertaining a lot of friends, you may want to open a Jeroboam. This is the big brother of the magnum. One bottle of Jeroboam contains three liters of wine, which is equivalent to four standard bottles or 20 glasses.
shapes of wine bottles
The abrupt “shoulder” of the Bordeaux bottle may have evolved to help trap sediment in aged wines. Although this may be true, the shapes of wine bottles have more to do with their region of origin than a functional characteristic. Different wine regions gradually developed their own bottle shapes, and there is no requirement for a certain type of wine to occupy a certain bottle shape. To avoid consumer confusion, most bottlers adhere to convention.
In addition to the Bordeaux bottle, another commonly used shape for red wine is the Burgundy bottle. It has more sloping shoulders and a slightly wider base. It is also 11½ inches tall, but has a 3½-inch diameter at the base. As Chardonnay is also made in Burgundy, you will find this varietal in a Burgundy-shaped bottle. The same is true for Pinot Noir.
German winemakers use a taller, thinner bottle. These long-necked bottles can hold the sweet dessert wines of that region, including Riesling and Gewürztraminer. The fourth type of bottle is used in the Champagne region and is a heavier, wider-based bottle that must be able to withstand the pressure of the bubbles inside.
Bonus question: What is a clearance?
There is a notch in the bottom of some wine and champagne bottles, and it is not designed to mislead the consumer as to the amount of liquid in the bottle. This hollow area is called bat, and there are various theories as to why it is there. Some say it aided in shipping bottles in crates because they could be lined up with the top of one bottle nested in the trough of another. A more likely theory is that when the bottles were blown by hand, imperfections in the bottom could cause instability in the bottle. To minimize the chances of a rocky bottle, the glassmaker would bleed the bottom. The word probably comes from punty Prayed pontilea glass blowing tool.
