Many of the names of large format champagne and wine bottles have biblical names (primarily named after kings). They are names that have been used throughout history (actually, mostly originating in Scotland), but are now largely out of use. According to wineworld.com, it is now illegal to put these names of these bottles, and are not just a fun thing to know in quizzes. However, there’s one exception – the magnum.
It’s one of the oldest of all the terms – first appearing in a poem by Robert Burns in 1788. It is an abbreviation of magnum bonum, which means “a large good thing.” In Scotland it first came to be used for wine bottles, but now has been used to refer to many varieties of things (e.g., potatoes, cooking plums, guns, and apparently a large-barreled steel pen).
Here’s a list of some other bottle names and sizes for your next bar trivia night:
|
Name
|
Volume in bottles
|
|
Magnum*
|
2
|
|
Jeroboam
|
4
|
|
Rehoboam
|
6
|
|
Methuselah
|
8
|
|
Salmanazar
|
12
|
|
Balthazar
|
16
|
|
Nebuchadnezzar
|
20
|
|
Melchior
|
24
|
|
Solomon
|
28
|
|
Soverign
|
33.3
|
|
Primat
|
36
|
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