The Shape of a Wine Bottle

What's in a shape anyway?

Do you have a favorite bottle shape? If not, you might after this post, because there are many, each with their own charms. These shapes aren’t merely aesthetic—they usually indicate what style you can expect from that bottle, because they reference European styles of wine that came with their own bottle shape. This post will go over the main bottle shapes you’ll find out in the wild, and tell you what you might expect from the wine within.

What are the main wine bottle shapes?

The main bottle shapes you’ll see are the Burgundy bottle, the Bordeaux bottle, the Alsatian (aka Germanic or Mosel) bottle, and the Champagne bottle.

Within each type, there are innumerable variations—taller or shorter, fatter or thinner, curvy or not, bigger punts (the dip on the bottom of the bottle) or no punt at all, shoulders at different heights, glass of different thicknesses, some with embossing, etc. Some producers even have their own specific bottle shape! But, these are the main generic shapes.

The Burgundy Bottle

The Burgundy bottle has a wide body and gently sloping shoulders. Being associated with Burgundy, this is usually the bottle shape of choice for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Aligoté, but it’s also popular for many other varietals if they are made in a generally lighter style than those in a Bordeaux bottle. 

The Bordeaux Bottle

The Bordeaux bottle has a narrower body with higher sides (slightly tapered in or straight) and defined round shoulders. It is often used for Bordelaise varieties, which would be Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Petite Verdot, Carmènére (to name most) for reds, and Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc for whites. Generally a winemaker will choose a Bordeaux bottle for a red wine to indicate that it’s in a more tannic, Bordeaux style*. But, it’s also used for whites and rosés that aren’t necessarily anything like a Bordeaux, so don’t get too fussed about it for the non-reds. 

The Alsatian Bottle (also known as the Hock or Mosel Bottle)

The Alsatian bottle is tall and slender, with a gently tapered neck. Wines in this bottle shape are usually signaling that they are an aromatic white variety like the kind in Alsace and surrounding regions, so that would be your Rieslings, Gewürztraminers, and Pinot Gris, as well as lesser-known varieties such as Müller-Thurgau. Some producers will put their higher quality wines in a taller bottle. This bottle shape is more delicate than the others, and that’s because it didn’t need to be as strong: these wines were transported gently down the river Rhine, which wasn’t as rough-and-tumble as the sea or land transport that bottles from other regions had to endure. Fun fact: these are often a total pain in the ass in the wine fridge—they can be too tall to fit normally (depth-wise), and so have to be stored width-wise, thus reducing the capacity of the bottles that can be kept on that shelf. To our long suffering Alsatian wine collectors—we see you.

The Champagne Bottle

The Champagne bottles are similar to Burgundy bottles, but because the wine inside is highly pressurized, they need to be stronger, so thicker and heavier glass is used. They also have a deeper punt in the bottom—punts strengthen the glass so again, this was more desirable for sparkling wine that needs a stronger bottle.

What are the more esoteric shapes?

There are so many! This is a whole world unto itself, and with a vibrant and thriving secondhand and antique market for obscure and old bottle shapes (quite a fun rabbit hole if you’re interested). But, here are a few of the more common esoteric shapes—some are quite similar to the main shapes such that you may have seen them and not even realized they were different.

The Rhône Bottle

The Rhône bottle is very similar to the Burgundy bottle, but it’s narrower and the shoulders have more of a defined point. The Rhone bottles from the Rhône will also typically be embossed on the neck.

The Côte de Provence Bottle 

The Côte de Provence rosé bottle is very distinctive, with a slightly curvy, hourglass shape. 

The Bocksbeutel

Coming from the Franconia region of Germany, the Bocksbeutel is also very distinctive, as it’s round and flattened—this is useful as it won’t roll away on you in Bavaria’s Franconian forest, or any other outdoor setting with uneven ground. This same shape is also found in parts of Portugal and Italy.

The Jura Clavelin

This one's from the Jura region of France, and used exclusively for the Vin Jaune style of wine. The Clavelin is squat, with prominent shoulders. It’s also short—much shorter than a normal wine bottle, and that’s because it also has a smaller volume. While a standard wine bottle has 750 ml, a Jura Claevlin is 620 ml—it’s the only non-standard bottle size allowed under EU law. These will often have embossing on the neck as well.

The Chianti Bottle

Bulbous on the bottom but held securely by a straw basket, this is a traditional bottle from Chianti known as a Fiasco, and this type of bottle in straw is actually centuries old. Usually this would be an affordable table wine (made from Sangiovese), and you can still find them if you look (especially if you’re looking at the candle holders in an old school Italian restaurant), but now most Chianti is sold in Bordeaux bottles.

What’s up with the differently colored glass?

Like bottle shape, there are a few main colors of glass for wine bottles: green (in several shades), amber/brown, and clear, although more recently there have been more glass colors coming on the market. And like bottle shape, these originally signaled something about the wine by calling back to the colors traditionally used in different European regions. However, these days, the lines are fairly blurred, with a few exceptions—rosé is almost always in a clear glass, which is not always great. Ideally, all wine would be in a dark-colored glass, because light can harm wine and produce off-flavors and affect the ageability of the wine. Unfortunately, there are commercial pressures to keep some wine in clear bottles—especially, rosés as their beautiful shades of pink are selling points. If you see a bottle of wine in clear glass, it is meant for immediate consumption and not meant to age.

What’s up with bottle sizes?

Graphics designed by Jaime Brown

A standard bottle of wine is 750 ml, a size which wasn’t made universal standard until the late 70s. This general size was originally because it’s roughly the capacity of a human lung, and all wine bottles used to be mouthblown. But there are many different sizes available. We talked about the special case of the Jura Clavelin above, but based on the standard 750 ml bottle we have:

187.5 ml (¼ bottle) is a split or a piccolo

375 ml (½ bottle) is a demie

750 ml is a standard 

1.5 L (2 bottles) is a magnum

2.25 L (3 bottles) is only in Bordeaux and called a Marie Jeanne

3 L (4 bottles) is a double magnum, or a Jeroboam in Champagne and Burgundy

4.5 L (6 bottles) is a Jeroboam in Bordeaux and a Rehoboam in Burgundy

6 L (8 bottles) is an Impériale in Bordeaux or a Methuselah in Champagne and Burgundy

9 L (12 bottles) is a Salmanazar

12 L (16 bottles) is a Balthazar

15 L (20 bottles) is a Nebuchadnezzar

These big bottles are more than just a novelty—because there is far more wine in the bottle, but the same sized cork and ullage (the air at the top of the bottle), they age more slowly and they can be longer lived than their standard-sized counterparts. Conversely, the smaller bottles age more quickly. Also, dessert wines often come in demies because the standard pour of a dessert wine is usually smaller.

Our Favorite Bottle Shapes

Erica loves Rhône wines and their bottles the best. So cute!

Jaime loves Côtes de Provence wines and their bottles, they’re so feminine!

Fun Fact: The 750 ml capacity is a holdover of a sort of metric-Imperial truce from the 19th century. The French used metric, but they mainly sold to the English, who used the Imperial system. An imperial gallon was about 4.5 liters. To make the conversion easy for the merchants, wines were transported in 225-liter barrels, which was 50 gallons, which turns out to be 300 bottles of 750 ml. Continuing to simplify, that means one Imperial gallon is 6 bottles. Keeping to this standardized size made it easy for both sides. It’s also why it’s standard to have a case of 6 or 12 bottles—it’s one or two gallons.

*There’s a popular story that this shape developed to more easily catch the sediment that more tannic wines throw off with age, but this might be merely lore with no factual basis.