🍷 Champagne bottle
A thick-walled bottle that withstands the pressure of the bubbles.
A sparkling wine bottle is a thick-walled bottle that can withstand the pressure of the bubbles. Inside Champagne and similar wines the pressure is about 5–6 times atmospheric, like in a bus tyre. A thin ordinary bottle for still wine would not survive it.
Such a bottle has heavy glass, wide shoulders and a concave base with a dimple. The dimple adds strength. The neck is closed with a cork, and a wire cage called a muselet is placed over it so that the cork cannot fly out. For wines aged on their lees, a temporary cap is sometimes used during storage.
The bottle belongs to the wider family of wine bottles: the usual size is 0.75 litres, but larger sizes exist. It is also the bottle chosen for sabrage, when the neck is opened with a sabre. All of this works because the glass is thick and the bottle is built for pressure.
How it connects to Wine
🍷 Champagne bottle → kind of → 🍷 Wine bottle ← packed in ← 🍷 Wine
Links
- Next step
- 🍷 Muselet
- Previous step
- 🍷 Sabrage
- Part of
- 🍷 Wine bottle
Frequently asked questions
Why is a sparkling wine bottle so heavy?
The glass is thick because the gas pressure inside is high, about 5–6 atmospheres.
Why is there a wire cage on the cork?
It is called a muselet; it holds the cork in place against the pressure.
What is the dimple at the bottom for?
The concave base makes the bottle stronger under high pressure.
Similar
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