Champagne Bottle Sizes

The Champagne bottle design is born as much out of style as it is necessity. The thick glass with its gently sloping shoulders and a deep punt (the indentation on the underside) are necessary as the pressure inside the bottle is 80-90psi (3 x the pressure inside an average car tyre).

Quarter Bottle 0.2 litres
Half Bottle 0.375 litres
Bottle 0.75 litres
Magnum (2 bottles) 1.5 litres

Jereboam (4 bottles) 3 litres

Jeroboam (actually Jeroboam II), was the King of Israel during the year of Rome's founding (753 BC)

Rehoboam (6 bottles) 4.5 litres

A son of Solomon, Rehoboam (meaning "the clan is enlarged" according to Willard Espy) became king of Judah in 933 BC.

Methuselah (8 bottles) 6 litres

Methuselah was an antediluvian patriarch described in the Old Testament as having lived 969 years and whose name is synonymous with great age. He may well have evolved from a character of earlier Sumerian legend who lived for 65,000 years.

Salmanazar (12 bottles) 9 litres

Shalmaneser (alternatively spelled Salmanazar) was an Assyrian monarch who reigned around 1250 BC.

Balthazar(16 bottles) 12 litres

Balthazar ("King of Treasures") is the traditional name of one of the Three Wise Men, the other two being Melchior ("King of Light") and Gaspar ("The White One"). Many scholars nowadays tend to characterize the trio not as kings but rather as Zoroastrian priests, while others speculate that at least one of them was a king -- namely Azes II of Bactria who reigned from 35 BC to 10 AD. Whatever their occupations, legend and German tourist brochures have it that the Three Wise Men -- or at the very least their skulls -- lie buried in a golden shrine at Cologne Cathedral.

Nabuchadnezzar (20 bottles) 15 litres

Nebuchadnezzar, originally nabu-kudurri-usur meaning "Nabu protect the boundary," became King of the Chaldean Empire in 604 BC. He was actually the second Nebuchadnezzar; a less celebrated Nebuchadnezzar I preceded him by 500 years.