A Bottle Or A Magnum? Take Your Pick

It’s a favourite  belief of wine professionals that the larger the wine bottle, the slower but more magnificent the evolution of the wine inside it

Does size matter? It’s a favourite belief of wine professionals that the larger the wine bottle, the slower but more magnificent the evolution of the wine inside it. For that reason, large format bottles generally carry a premium. The theory is that in larger bottle sizes the ratio of liquid to oxygen, assumed to govern the ageing process, is higher and therefore the reactions that comprise ageing will take place more slowly and somehow in a more stately fashion.

Part of the reason why many wine producers excuse themselves from putting wine in half bottles is the argument that the wine will age inconveniently rapidly. But all these beliefs are predicated on the assumption that we live forever, which we don’t. As I get older, I become more impatient and would be delighted if all the wines in my cellar aged twice as rapidly as they are likely to. In fact it’s rather tempting to seek out half bottles deliberately.

And one thing that rather worries me about the increasing tendency to bottle wines under screwcaps is my suspicion that they may age much more slowly than under natural corks, because there is less oxygen in the bottle – although admittedly quality-conscious producers are increasingly wise to this and are trying to control oxygen transmission rates (blessed OTRs) with the utmost precision.