WineInk: Going biblically big

It seems everything in Aspen is just a little bigger. At least everything that can be associated with good times. Maybe it’s the influence of the Texans in our midst, or perhaps it is a result of being surrounded by 14,000-foot peaks. Whatever the cause, the desire to go big is palpable around here.

And in wine, going big means bringing out the large-format bottles. You know: The magnums — those that contain the equivalent of two bottles of wine. Or, if you are in Aspen, perhaps something even bigger. Maybe a double magnum. Or bigger still.

It can be downright majestic to drink wines out of bottles that seem to be larger than life. Wines poured from Jeroboam, Balthazar, or Nebuchanezzar bottles just taste … regal. Perhaps because they are, well, bigger.

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If you have more than a passing understanding of who or what Jeroboam and Methuselah are, I would guess that you are either a biblical scholar or a master of wine. If you are both, then consider yourself one of the more unique and learned members of a society who, these days, rarely marries the study of religion with the pleasures of the grape. Ah, but there is a connection between the names of biblical figures and the wider world of wine that goes back centuries.

You’ve likely entered a restaurant and spied a massive bottle of wine sitting on display on a counter, perhaps signed by the winemaker. It might have been a “Jeroboam.” If the bottle was truly, truly humongous, it may have been a “Methuselah.” And if it was so big that you wondered how they even got it up on that counter, well then, you may have actually seen a “Balthazar.” No doubt when you saw the bottle, the first thing you likely wondered was, “Is it full?” Then you asked. “How can they pour from it?”  

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In the wine trade, these behemoths are called “large format” bottles. They are various sizes larger than the regular 750 ml bottles that you would find on your wine shop’s shelves or on a restaurant wine list. Large formats begin with the aforementioned “Magnums,” which hold 1,500 ml (milliliters), the equivalent of two regular bottles of wine.

And because this is wine we are talking about, things get a little confusing at this stage. Especially when the French are involved. And in wine, the French are always involved.

You see, different wines from different regions use different large format bottles, so that they can be, well, different. A Double Magnum of Bordeaux, for example, would hold four bottles. A four-bottle bottle of either Champagne or Burgundy would be called a “Jeroboam,” but a Bordeaux “Jeroboam” would hold six standard bottles. Got it? Viva la difference!

From there, the largeness of the large-format bottles just gets bigger and bigger. We’ll stick with the Burgundian sizes to make it simple, and jump, jump, jump around a bit. The “Methuselah” holds eight standard bottles; the “Balthazar” contains 16 bottles; the Nebuchadnezzar 20 bottles; and, finally, for those with big bottle-sized budgets only, there’s the “Melchior,” which can hold the equivalent of 24 standard bottles, or, as I like to call it, two cases.

Party on.

The “Melchior” is extremely rare and is generally bottled and sold for charitable events. At more than 100 pounds apiece, they are indeed big dogs. By the way: You can pour a glass of wine for 144 of your friends from one of these babies.

The reason the large formats have biblical names is, is, is … well, no one really knows, as far as I can tell. It is assumed that when bottles came into standard use for wine in the early 1700s post-jug generation, big bottles were bought by rich folks, who displayed their richness by buying big things. Big bottles of wine were part and parcel of the whole “impress your friends” zeitgeist.

Monks, who bottled wines in Bordeaux, are said to have introduced a “Jeroboam,” which they named after the 14th king of Israel who, according to the ChristianAnswers.net dictionary, had a “reign of 41 years that was the most prosperous that Israel had ever known as yet.” They were big bottles for wealthy people named after a prosperous man. Sounds good. I assume the standard was established, and, from thereafter, large formats and biblical figures were coupled in glass.

Big bottles are, in fact, impressive. And nothing is more fun than setting a large-format bottle on the table for dinner — one that doesn’t run dry until your numerous family and friends start thinking dessert. And they — that would be the experts — say that a large-format bottle of wine imparts different flavor characteristics from the same wine in a smaller bottle. Youth is served, they say, because the greater volume of wine will age more slowly.

There also seems to be a quest by some to produce even bigger bottles. Search the internet, and you’ll come across a “Maximus” bottle of Beringer Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon that weighed in at a whopping 340 pounds. There is a picture from somewhere in China of a bottle of ice wine that is said to be 15 feet tall.

Yes, it does get a little silly. And bigger is not always better.

Even in Aspen.