The holidays make me feel extra generous, especially with my pours. While standard wine bottles may be fine for evenings around the fire, they don’t cut it when I’m trying to give the gift of full glasses to my family of 40 (and that’s just my dad’s side). Large-format bottles are the best way to get all your aunts feeling good and still have some left for yourself, but that’s only one perk of their size.
Large-format wines have a lower percentage of air to wine than standard bottles, decreasing the risk of flaws. But perhaps most important, pouring wine from a large format has the same effect as putting on Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”—everyone’s heart bursts into confetti and the festivities truly begin. Check out how to scale your wine intake up and up and up below:
Magnum (1.5L): 2 bottles of wine — 10 glasses
Double Magnum (3L): 4 bottles of wine — 20 glasses
Jeroboam (4.5L): 6 bottles of wine — 30 glasses
Imperial (6L): 8 bottles of wine — 40 glasses
Salmanazar (9L): 12 bottles of wine — 60 glasses
Balthazar (12L): 16 bottles of wine — 80 glasses
Nebuchadnezzar (15L): 20 bottles of wine — 100 glasses
Yeah, most of them sound like the sons of military generals or new house names at Hogwarts, but they're all types of bottles. Promise. Champagne is the most common wine in large format, but a good wine shop will usually stock a few others. Don’t be too shy to ask for a Salmanazar!
