The SOMM Journal

April / May 2015

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{ SOMMjournal.com }  19 Sir Kenelm Digby was a 17th-century English courtier and "Renaissance man" who is credited with being the father of the modern wine bottle. His methods—which involved a hotter coal furnace thanks to the presence of a wind tunnel—produced bottles that were stronger and more stable than the average bottles of the time. Matthew Kaner, Wine Director/co-owner of Covell and Augustine in Los Angeles, shows off his love for Cornas with a Rhôdanienne-shaped tattoo. There are a few regions that have legal requirements for bottle usage, including the Jura AOP, which requires that their Château-Chalon AOP wines must be bottled in a 62 cl. Clavelin bottle (roughly the amount of wine left after six years of aging in barrel under voile). Capacity/Volume The use of a 750 ml. bottle as the standard size for the wine bottle was not internationally accepted until the 1970s, when the international powers-that-be decided this was the ideal size for importation and taxation. I found two main theories for how this ¾ of a liter size became so popular : Some say that this is the average exhalation capacity of a glass- blower's lungs, and therefore the approximate size of a bottle created by one blow. During the Napoleonic times, 750 ml. was the societally accepted ration of wine that the average French male could drink during a single meal. Shoulders These come in all shapes and sizes (see below). PHOTO: MAXWELL ORGELL Bor delaise Champenoise Bocksbeutel

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