Bottle Shapes and Sizes, a Matter of Tradition or Utility?

We have evidence that wine is over 7000 years old, and in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was stored in beautiful two-handled containers, usually clay, called amphorae. Some of them were quite sophisticated and were stamped with the equivalent of a wine label including the vintner's name, the vintage, etc. Wine was also commonly stored in stoneware and leather. Although glass vessels go back to around 1500 BC in those regions, the glass was so difficult and costly to produce that it was mainly used for decorative purposes. Those who could afford them considered glass jewelry and other glass object to be as valuable as jewels. Small glass jugs and jars existed and were known to be superior to wood and clay for storing honey and wine, but for most people, the cost put them out of reach. This went on for thousands of years until the blowpipe was invented around 30 BC and led to what has been known as "The Golden Age of Glass" throughout the vast Roman Empire. Glass was a major step forward because it's inert, neutral in flavor, unlike skins, and was much better at preventing oxidation when well sealed.

Blown glass containers were, at first, still so costly and fragile that they were only for the wealthy and were generally used as serving containers rather than storage vessels. It's amazing that these ancient wine bottles were remarkably similar in size to the standard bottles of today. We believe that the size of these early bottles was determined by the lung capacity of the blower. By the mid 1600s, a new technique created bottles that were thicker, heavier, stronger and cheaper. It was easiest to blow a wide shape, so they had a bulbous, onion-shaped body with a funnel neck and a string to tie down the stopper. These were also very beautiful containers, collector's items now, and usually they were lovely, dark greens and browns. The added strength meant they could be used for storage and transport now, and not just as a decanter. But for a long time, it was illegal to sell bottled wine, because the glass blowing methods were so primitive that the bottle sizes varied too much, almost inviting chicanery. It was actually more common at that time for the buyer to bring his own container and purchase a measured amount of wine from the producer.

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