Beginner's guide to bigger bottles
Magnums provide quality, quantity and a certain something special
What’s better than a bottle of wine? An even bigger one, of course. A magnum comes in at 1.5 litres, twice the size of a regular wine bottle. Its show-stopping size is a great way to turn heads and light up eyes at any celebration. Here’s what you need to know about these larger-than-life bottles.
Quality is guaranteed
If a producer is bottling wine in a large format, it’s likely to be the best of the bunch. These are often the wines they want to show off with the bespoke materials used to create these bottles, with labels and corks are produced in limited runs.
Do the numbers
If you’re hosting an event, whether celebratory or simply for a large group, then it makes sense to buy a bigger bottle. With about 12 glasses in a magnum, they’ll keep you from having to open new bottles too frequently. Given the size, a magnum can be tricky to pour. Try decanting the wine into a smaller vessel first and allowing it a few minutes to breath.
They taste better
No, really. Because there’s more wine in the bottle and less empty space between the wine and cork (called ullage), there’s a proportionately smaller amount of air in the bottle and the wine will often develop greater nuances and more complex flavours than wine aged in standard bottles.
They age with grace
Magnums slow the ageing process as they contain twice as much wine as a 750ml bottle to about the same amount of oxygen. So wine in a magnum lasts considerably longer than wine in a regular bottle, making it a memorable gift.
In all shapes and sizes
How did the standard 750ml bottle come about? One theory is that this was the largest size that glassblowers could produce with one full breath. But even in those days, wineries would also create oversized bottles, many of which were named after Biblical figures such as Methuselah, Balthazar and Nebuchadnezzar.