Why do magnums age better

As I get older, I become more impatient and would be delighted if all the wines in my cellar aged twice as rapidly as they are likely to. And one thing that rather worries me about the increasing tendency to bottle wines under screwcaps is my suspicion that they may age much more slowly than under natural corks, because there is less oxygen in the bottle — although, admittedly, quality-conscious producers are increasingly wise to this and are trying to control oxygen transmission rates , blessed OTRs, with the utmost precision.

Another reason I am a bit wary of really big bottles is closely related to the reason why so many wine producers prefer screwcaps to corks. And I must say that I see little evidence that the problem of cork taint is decreasing. One of the six bottles of a Zinfandel I presented at a tasting in Croatia a couple of months ago was mildly TCA-affected so that any taster would have been puzzled as to why I had chosen to showcase it.

And those were simply the most recent examples I could remember at the time of writing. It has got to the stage where it is more remarkable to experience a multi-bottle dinner or tasting with all bottles in perfect condition than not. I am thrilled that some cork producers can now offer, at a price, corks that are guaranteed uniformly TCA-free, but of course the sorts of wine whose producers are prepared to pay for this service are likely to be those with a long life. I may not even be around to enjoy the fruits of this new technique.

Big bottles are just plain impressive, no matter the occasion. From the start, a big bottle screams celebration and sets a dramatic tone for everything from Super Bowl parties to date night.

Plus, using a magnum as a centerpiece removes the need to build a time-consuming Martha Stewart-approved tablescape. Plus, watching your friends pick up a heavy, empty bottle and try to pour from it never gets old. Big bottles need love, too. Wine may go back many millennia to the Bronze Age but the wine bottle we know today is only about three centuries old.

It was only the development of the cork-closured cylindrical glass bottle--stacked on its side, keeping the cork airtight and wet--that permitted the evolution of age-worthy wines that improve with cellaring. One theory is that this size of bottle was the largest that early glassblowers could produce with one full breath. However, even in those early days and for very special occasions, wineries would put up their product in impressive, oversize bottles.

For reasons lost to history, most of these bottles were given the names of Biblical figures like the evil King Nebuchadnezzar and the long-lived Methuselah. Go big. Erica is a Swedish-American wine writer and sustainability consultant, with a MSc. After many years in Biotech, she fell for the mix of science, culture, history and sensory pleasure that makes up the wine world and re-schooled to become a wine writer.

She frequently contributed to leading Swedish food and wine magazines, with a popular monthly column on the science of winemaking. Now, Erica focuses most of her energy as a consultant on sustainability in wine and food production but still holds the role as food and wine editor of ICON Magazine. She has made her own natural wine, a petit sirah aptly named Pas Petite, in Sonoma, California.

Articles Wine Science Magnum bottle science - is bigger always better? Magnum bottle science - is bigger always better? Wine Science. Published 16 September