What’s the meaning behind the names for wine bottle sizes?
Interestingly, many of them are named after biblical kings. Like much of wine culture, these naming conventions connect us to history. Wine has been a part of human life for thousands of years, so it’s fitting that the bottles we pour from carry echoes of our oldest stories.
No one knows exactly how this tradition began; but exploring it can be as fun as discovering what’s at the bottom of a six-liter Methuselah.
Below is a list of wine bottle sizes and their names.
Wine Bottle Sizes Chart
187.5 ml Piccolo or Split: Typical for a single serving of Champagne.
375 ml Demi or Half: Holds one-half of the standard 750 ml size.
750 ml Standard: Common bottle size for most wine.
1.5 L Magnum: Equivalent to two standard 750 ml bottles.
3.0 L Double Magnum: Equivalent to two Magnums or four standard 750 ml bottles.
4.5 L Jeroboam: Equivalent to six standard 750 ml bottles. (In sparkling wines, a Jeroboam is 3 liters)
4.5 L Rehoboam: A sparkling wine bottle with six standard 750 ml bottles.
6.0 L Methuselah: (aka Imperial) Equivalent to eight standard 750 ml bottles or two Double Magnums.
9.0 L Salmanazar: Equivalent to twelve standard 750 ml bottles or a full case of wine!
12.0 L Balthazar: Equivalent to sixteen standard 750 ml bottles or two Imperials.
15.0 L Nebuchadnezzar: Equivalent to twenty standard 750 ml bottles.
18.0 L Solomon: (aka Melchior) Equivalent to twenty-four standard 750 ml bottles.
Facts about wine bottle sizes
- Box wine is commonly 3 liters or the size of a double magnum.
- A Rehoboam in terms of Champagne bottles is only 4.5 liters or six bottles.
- A Methuselah is the same size as an Imperial (6 liters), but the name is usually only for sparkling wines in a Burgundy-shaped bottle
The big question about wine bottle sizes is how many servings are in a bottle? Well, given that a standard wine bottle is sized at 750 ml, that means it has five servings per bottle.
So the next time you see a Nebuchadnezzar at a celebration, you’ll know it’s the equivalent of twenty bottles of wine — enough to keep a small kingdom happy.