🍷 Magnum

A magnum is a wine bottle of 1.5 litres, that is, two ordinary 0.75-litre bottles. It is often chosen for celebrations and large gatherings because more glasses can be poured from it.

It also has a special property: wine in a magnum matures more slowly. The reason is that a bottle has a small amount of air under the cork while the wine is plentiful. Per litre of liquid there is less air than in an ordinary bottle, so oxidation is slower. It is believed that in a large format wine ages more gracefully and keeps longer.

That is why collectors and winemakers like magnums for ageing. For a one-off occasion they are handy for a large party.

The magnum is one of the standard wine bottle sizes. There are smaller ones, such as the half bottle of 0.375 litres, and larger ones with their own names. In talk about ageing in the bottle the magnum is usually given as an example of a format that preserves wine better.