It’s been said – often by teachers themselves – that schooling merely teaches a person how to spell ‘education’. In the real world, we literally learn new things every day. And I have a special place where that usually happens…
The 9 most common Champagne Bottle sizes currently in use…
Folks also like to repeat the old truism, that there is often a big gap between ‘knowledge’ and ‘wis-dom’. I sometimes explain to folks who raise an eyebrow to obscure facts I offer in casual conver-sation that I am ‘a fount of useless information’. Which is not to say my contributions are in the least uninteresting.
What’s The Little Room?
My birth Dad’s Dad simply called it ‘the shack out back’. He grew up using one, on the farm. By con-trast, one of my Mom’s Mom’s proper, tea-drinking barmy old cat-lady friends never used any more-direct description of it than ‘The Little Room’.
Yes. It’s what we modern, worldly folks, in our sterile utilitarian habit, call ‘the washroom’, ‘the con-venience’, or ‘the facility’.
I call it my reading room.
Picture it…
I was sitting in The Little Room on Sunday morning absorbing The Kings of The Bible, when I realized something that had long been a ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’ proposition for me: The most com-mon larger-sized Champagne bottles are named after ancient Levanthan Kings chronicled in The Old Testament! Why? I’ll get to that in a minute. But first…
15 sizes in all
There are 15 sizes of Champagne bottle that are currently (or, at some time or another, have been) in actual use. From the tiny ‘airline-sized’ 1/4 bottle to the truly gigantic 30 L Melchizidek, equivalent to 40 standard 26 fl. oz. / 750 ml standard bottles.
Of those, 4 can currently be found in stores (or ordered from better restaurant wine lists), from the aforemen-tioned ‘Split’ to the half-bottle ‘Small’, to the Standard bottle, to the well-known 2-bottle Magnum – which is simply Latin for ‘large’.
Then we get into the ‘divine mysteries’… The middle 9 names are authentically Biblical. It’s been suggested they were chosen to honour the greatness and power of these literal gas bombs. They range from the familiar 4-bottle Jeroboam to the magnificent 26.6-bottle Solomon.
My take…
… Which was totally wrong, was that these names were assigned by Dom Pérignon, “a Benedictine monk who was an important quality pioneer for Champagne wine but who, contrary to popular myths, did not discover the Champagne méthod for making sparkling wines.”
Sorry.Nope. But you can’t deny it would have been a fortuitous, romantic connection!
The Biblical names for the middle 9 Champagne bottle sizes were, in fact, first chosen by the makers of the renowned Bordeaux French Red wines for their product, back in the 17th century. And were only adopted by the Champagne trade in the middle of the last century!
But now, at the very least, you have in your metaphorical back pocket a rich collection of deliciously obscure Champagne-related tales to draw on next time the cocktail conversation turns alcoholic!
~ Maggie J.