“Red or white all is cool!
Drink or not doesn’t make you a fool!
But I like ’em bottles of varied shades!
Shiny like diamond and imperial like jade!”
Do you know the link between a bottle of wine and the tidal volume of a man!?
Intrigued!?
read on!
So remember when we used to get our drinks only in bottles and the popping of the soda was a cool sound!
In many places in the south we used to have this drink called the Goli Soda!
These green colour bottles used to come in carts and when you have to drink them up you had to pop the soda! There used to be a marble which used to separate the top and bottom of the bottle and the a quick snap or push by the seller would make the pop! Then the drink would become carbonated and cool!
Luckily though our or rather my enthusiasm used to stop at that! I never had any special liking for those bubbles or the sugary drinks! Plus the fact that they always used to irritate my throat the next day was another major reason to avoid them like plague!
I would prefer a hot masala chai to the cold drink even on a hot summer day or night for that matter!
I guess that is why even the ‘hot’ cold drinks or alcohol never was a temptation! Being a teetotaler is something I bring out many times since I have seen blokes putting their drinking snaps with pride!
Now the wine is apparently the drink which even the Teetotalers take! Which is why this special interest in the bottle since I love the wine bottles! And not the wine inside them!
Some of the most amazing tourist places like Georgia and Munich and Austria have places with amazing wine cellars!
The moment you enter these cellars a sweet smell gets you! I love that smell! Which is probably why I can tolerate the bottles!
In all these cellars you would see the bottles in the same shape and size and this is because of a historical necessity!
So when wine first began to be produced and consumed, it was primarily stored in amphorae and other large containers. But over time, and particularly in medieval times, the need for more manageable quantities for transportation and sale emerged.
The secondary reason of the 750 ml capacity is also linked to the old British system of measurement. A standard bottle of wine was approximately one “fifth” of a US gallon, or 1/5 of a gallon, which equals 757 ml. With the adoption of the metric system in many wine producing countries such as France and Italy, the size was rounded to 750 ml to facilitate international trade.
The primary reason is something called the tidal volume and the volume of air in your lungs! An average adult male has a tidal volume of around 500 ml! Then again the glass blowers were strong individuals who had good capacity to blow! But even they had some limits!
In an era when everything was done by hand, a glassblower could comfortably produce a bottle of this size in a single puff!
In addition, 750 ml represents approximately the average quantity that a person could consume without excess during a meal! Of course the latter part is not a compulsion you see!
The capacity now is more than just a business standard. It has proven to be the ideal container to allow wine to age gracefully, providing the necessary amount of air for the wine to breathe, whilst retaining its delicate nuances and aromas.
The standard 750 ml bottle of wine is the result of an evolution that has spanned the ages. It is a reminder of a time when the glassblower and the winemaker worked hand in hand to present this drink in the most appropriate container!
Ever wondered why some bottles have a punt – a base that is pushed up into the bottle?
There are many theories but the most likely one is that when wine bottles were blown they had a broken punt mark on the bottom which might have made the bottle unsteady and could have scratched the table.
To avoid that happening the punt was pushed up into the bottle while the glass was soft.
Some bottles still have a punt although there is no good reason for it other than to make the bottle and, by association, the wine, appear more expensive.
Of course all these things are wondered by people who like the history of everything including the wine bottle and not in drinking the said wine! Then again it is wine and not water or water pump! That was mentioned only to link it to our birthday celebrity Sunny paji who does not ‘whine’ too much but can make you ‘whine’ a lot!
Now warm…water and sleep!
Shubh ratri!
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