You've seen those big bottles of beer, and wine and champagne, but what do you call them? This has been going around the internet, so I present you the history of bottle naming conventions.No one is exactly sure of the reasons why larger format bottles were given biblical names. But, according to the Champagne expert Francois Bonal, winemakers in Bordeaux had been using the name Jeroboam for the four-bottle size since 1725. (It's presumed they selected Jeroboam, the biblical founder of Israel, who ruled from 931-910 BC because he is referred to as "a man of great worth," as were the larger size bottles). Bonal also explains that a Champagne medieval poet, Eugene Destuche, mentioned several of these names in his poetry. The region of Champagne adopted the Jeroboam size and followed suit with larger format bottles developed in the 1940s, continuing the practice of selecting biblical kings and patriarchs.
- Half Bottle (375 ml)
- Bottle (750 ml)
- Magnum (2 bottles - 1.5 liters)
- Jeroboam (4 bottles - 3 liters) First king of Israel 931-910 BC
- Rehoboam (6 bottles - 4.5 liters) Banned by US and EU regulations
- Methuselah (8 bottles - 6 liters) Biblical patriarch who lived to the age of 969
- Salmanazar (12 bottles - 9 liters) King of Assyria: 859-824 BC
- Balthazar (16 bottles - 12 liters) King of Babylon: 539BC
- Nebuchadnezzar (20 bottles - 15 liters) King of Babylon, 605-562 BC
