Netscape Forum Poll: Largest bottle you've tasted from ...

[Robin Garr]

Tying in with Jorge Eduardo Castillo's recent "Server's Perspective" column about the advantages of large-format wine bottles in restaurant service, we're curious about how many of you have enjoyed wines from oversize bottles. Magnum, Jeroboam or Nebuchadnezzar, we'd love to count your vote - and hear your stories - in this week's CompuServe/Netscape forum poll.

<b>Click here to vote</b>

Does everyone have the weekly disclaimer about no registration and login needed committed to memory by now?

Couldn't actually say the size. Back in college (in the 70's) @ at party we were drinking from a bottle 3-4 ft high. An enlongated chianti bottle. Maybe it was chianti, maybe something else...pretty nasty, but we were out of beer.

Richard

Richard wrote:
Couldn't actually say the size. Back in college (in the 70's) @ at party we were drinking from a bottle 3-4 ft high. An elongated Chianti bottle. Maybe it was Chianti, maybe something else...pretty nasty, but we were out of beer.

If it is the “change bottle” I have in my den, it’s a DOCG Chianti, U.Raspollini, a 3 liter bottle in the shape of a rifle.

Salute

Largest I ever drank from was a 15L bottle of Pol Roger NV Champagne. The occasion was a wine geek's birthday party. She likes large format bottles, so her husband ordered this one secretly as a birthday party surprise. The birthday party also included a Champagne sabering contest. No--we didn't saber the Nebuchadnezzar.

-Paul W.

Haven't had any wine from it, but I've seen the Maximus, said to be the largest wine bottle in the world, at Wine Ventures in Tenafly, New Jersey.

http://www.wineaccess.com/store/wineventures/

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/60696

Not the largest bottle I've tasted from, but last week I had a story in the local rag about a Balthazar (12 litres) that I spotted at a local winery. Ascension Wines in Matakana (Auckland, New Zealand) has bottled their flagship red, Epiphany, in a number of large format bottles, the largest being the Balthazar, which they bottled just two of. It looks rather majestic when photographed next to a 750 ml bottle.

The largest I've ever had a glass from, was a six litre 'Imperial' with some Aussie red wine in it.

I wish I knew for sure. One year at the Kentucky Derby, we were invited to an estate nearby for a party. As we entered, there were wines aplenty in the dining room, and as we went from there to the back 40, where there was a large tent, a dance floor, waiters and waitresses, and a hundred or so guests milling around, we passed a very large bottle sitting in a stainless steel like basket hinged to tilt and pour - the bottle being way too large to lift and pour. I know what 3, 4.5 and 6 look like, and this seemed like it held twice as much as a 4.5 or 6. I was awed. I frankly don't remember what the wine tasted like - too many mint juleps at the track that day - but the presentation was fabulous.

[Robin Garr]

to the back 40

Take it from a Kentuckian, OW ... that kind of "estate" doesn't have a "back 40." A very large lawn, maybe ...

It would have to have been that huge bottle of 1950 (or '52??) Bordeaux that was being poured at the Tour de France MoCool in 2001 at Clay's place. No idea of what the wine was, but I do remember trying a bit just as the dregs appeared.

OW, that wasn't Anita Madden's party in Lexington was it?