When I was a kid, and all books were made of paper, it was cause for celebration when the new Guinness Book of World Records (new Guinness World Records) started showing up in stores. The globe-adorned paperback cover promised new records in everything from feats of endurance to hard-to-believe natural oddities.
I wondered where they found those people, and eventually I understood that many of those people found them. Who wouldn’t want to be a certified world-record holder in something? Maybe not world’s longest fingernails but something, right? I can recall the huge respect and slight tinge of envy I felt when I learned as an adult that a friend’s brother had held a world record in pogo sticking. Damn! Why didn’t I set my mind to that?
RELATED: 25 GREAT SUMMER COCKTAILS
Pogo sticking records come and go (and with any luck, the Guinness longest fingernail category has been retired). But one entry that I knew I could count on, new edition after new edition, was that of Robert Wadlow, who was born in 1918 and raised on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River in Alton, Ill. At 8 feet, 11.1 inches, he was — and decades after his death remains — the tallest human ever to live.
Big bottles of wine, like the “Alton Giant,” capture our attention. Just the look of an oversize bottle tells us that something beyond the ordinary is afoot. The shape is basically the same as a regular bottle, but — it is so much bigger. What gives?
It’s a party — that’s what gives. This will be a night (or day) to remember. An oversize bottle says, “Soon we will partake in the same collective bounty.” You have been lucky enough in your life to attend a pig roast? Part of that ritual’s appeal is the apple in the mouth, I will give you that. But more than that is the idea that when that fine sacrificial beast is portioned, it will feed everyone within hollerin’ earshot.
A standard wine bottle holds about 25 ounces of wine, or 750 milliliters, and there is a school of thought that says it is the perfect amount for two people to share. Another school of thought says that it is the perfect amount for one person to not share — that it is just enough for one. Then again, I know some people who might suggest that a bottle per person is a good start to an evening. On some nights, I might agree with them.
But the really big bottles, the ones we refer to as large-format? They are built for sharing. Unless you consume like the late professional wrestler and “The Princess Bride” scene-stealer Andre the Giant, who once told David Letterman that after cutting back on drinking he still occasionally enjoys “two or three bottles” of white wine with dinner, large-format wines are for sharing.
The big bottles start with the magnum, which holds the equivalent of two standard bottles (1.5 liters). After the magnum, some large-format bottle sizes have different names depending on their shape and the type of wine they hold.
So, a Marie Jeanne holds three bottles (2.25 liters), and a double magnum probably doesn’t need an explanation, since you can do simple math, but I’ll give you one anyway, just for the sake of being thorough: four bottles in one (3 liters). When a bottle of this size has sloping shoulders, it is called a Jeroboam.
A high-shouldered bottle that holds six bottles is also called a Jeroboam, and its slope-shouldered partner is a Rehoboam. An Imperial holds eight bottles, the equivalent of 6 liters. A Methuselah holds eight bottles, too, but has sloping shoulders, and is usually used for sparkling wine.
Besides being festive, large-format bottles are better for aging wine than standard-size bottles. This is because the air-to-wine ratio is lower in bigger bottles. Large-format bottles can present challenges, too, but put into perspective they are similar to the problems you might face if you were to rent a dunk tank for a party. “Where are we going to put it?” “How long will it take to fill?” They are not problems that will keep you up at night.
With big bottles, it’s mostly about getting the wine into the glasses and keeping it off the tablecloth. The pouring difficulty increases with the bottle sizes, eventually requiring two hands instead of one, and then possibly employing your hip for stability, and ultimately relying on the precision of a decanting cradle. The first time I witnessed this ritual, in which several grown men Iwo Jima-ed a giant bottle onto a table and into a tilting cradle, I wanted to clap my hands like a baby and shout, “Do it again!”
Now for the really big ones, which are increasingly rare. A Salmanazar holds 12 bottles (an entire case of wine), which equates to 9 liters; a Balthazar holds 16 bottles (12 liters), and a Nebuchadnezzar holds 20 bottles (15 liters). Also, somewhere out there, in limited numbers, there are even a few more sizes, ranging from the 24-bottle-equivalent Melchior to the Melchizedek, which contains a stunning 40 bottles — or 200 glasses of wine (figuring 5 ounces per glass).
On the other end of the size spectrum are the half bottle (375 milliliters), and the split (187 milliliters). While these little cuties don’t inspire awe and mirth the way the big bottles can, they do hold a certain appeal of their own.
As I recall, the tiniest human in the Guinness Book also captured my attention on several occasions. For the record, the honor currently belongs to Nepal’s late Chandra Bahadur Dangi, who stood 1 foot, 9.5 inches tall.
Twitter @pour_man
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #144A7C;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “Food & Dining Photos and Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 23px/25px Georgia,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
var playlist = ‘chi_dining’,
layout = ‘autoblurb5plus1’,
iu = ‘%2F4011%2Ftrb.chicagotribune%2Fent%2Fdining’;
