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Posted to alt.food.wine
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How to choose a wow wine gift
wrote:
> In wine terms, the bigger the bottle, the more there is to go
> around, the better it will age and the more "ah!" power it will
> carry.
And the higher the deception when cork tainted. Happened to me
with a magnum of Gruaud Larose 1961, a wedding gift back in 1992
directly from the cellars of the chateau, opened in fall 2004.
> Bottles even bigger than magnums carry even more good will:
> Magnum: holds two regular bottles, or 1.5 liters Double magnum:
> holds four regular bottles, or 3 liters. Jeroboam: holds six
> regular bottles, or 4.5 liters. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Not true anymore, since EU (and US, iirc) regulations have ruled
out bottle sizes with fractions of a liter for anything over 3
liters. So a Jéroboam today is 5 liters. The same bottle size
happens to be called "cinque litri imperiali" ("5 liter imperial")
in Italian, while the traditional Bordeaux "Impériale" holds six
litres.
Note that traditional large format Champagne bottles do differ in
designation. A Jéroboam is 3 litres in Champagne while 4.5/5
liters in still wines, while the 6 liter "Imperiale" is a
"Méthusalem" or "Methuselah" in Champagne.
M.
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