The bigger the indent the better the wine???

I heard the bigger the indent on the bottom of the bottle (whatever that is called) the better the wine will be.

And so far I found that to be a pretty good rule of thumb, can anyone comment on that? Does it really mean anything?

Hi Abe,
Its called a “punt” and it really doesn’t mean anything. It just keeps the sediment in the bottle when trying to get the “last drop” of wine out.

Salute

You gotta have a deep punt and really thick glass and a label designed by Ralph Steadman or one that features art by the owner's wife.
Picasso is okay, too: http://www.theartistlabels.com/mouton/1973.html

I think the converse may be true(ish). If you don't see a punt then I think it indicates the glass is really cheap and you might infer that the wine enclosed is somewhat so. However I've seen some really deep punts that have yielded average wine and very normal ones that held great juice. For the record, I've never had a really good or great wine form a bottle that had no punt, read into that what you will.

I think around here it's more of a truism that the bigger the indent the bigger the marketing aspirations for the wine and the more tricked up (in a bad way) the wine is likely to be.

YMMV.

I think the converse may be true(ish). If you don't see a punt then I think it indicates the glass is really cheap and you might infer that the wine enclosed is somewhat so. However I've seen some really deep punts that have yielded average wine and very normal ones that held great juice. For the record, I've never had a really good or great wine form a bottle that had no punt, read into that what you will.

I think that most of the Muscadet that I own (and perhaps most of the Riesling, too) comes in bottles that lack punts. For the record, I consider those wines really, really good.

Mark Lipton

The biggest punts come on body-builder bottles which I avoid like the plague. We have a family joke about about my wine ignoramus brother-in-law who once picked up a bottle which we had drunk with pleasure and pointing at the lack of punt said "that's a bad wine". (Another trick of his is to pull out a pocket vintage card in a restaurant and announce that the wine recommended by the sommelier comes from a "bad" vintage.)

The biggest punts come on body-builder bottles which I avoid like the plague. We have a family joke about about my wine ignoramus brother-in-law who once picked up a bottle which we had drunk with pleasure and pointing at the lack of punt said "that's a bad wine". (Another trick of his is to pull out a pocket vintage card in a restaurant and announce that the wine recommended by the sommelier comes from a "bad" vintage.)

Best get the in-house PO to have a word with him!! Betcha she knows what going down.

Abe

There is some truth to the observation.

A deeper punt means more glass is used which means the bottle is more expensive for the winery to purchase, deeper the punt, more expensive the bottle.

So a winery competing at the bottom price range must save money -- short cheap corks and inexpensive bottles to keep costs down.

A more expensive wine can afford more on the cork and bottle.

Of course a winery could put their top wine in a cheap bottle with no punt but image also comes into the equation. Someone paying for an expensive wine expects the packaging to look/feel expensive.

There is a new joker that has recently joined the pack, tho'.

Green initiatives are bringing light weight bottles into the market place and heavy bottles are being seen (by some) as bad for the environment since they use more resources to transport them across the planet.

As a home wine maker, many friends save me their bottles, which I de-label and sterilize for my wines. I get a large assortment of bottles. Over the past 34 years I've probably removed thousands of labels. I would not use the depth of the punt to gauge the quality of the wine, based on the labels I remove. Yellow Tail wines all have deep punted Bordeaux style bottles. Riesling (Hock bottles) almost never have punts. 90% of Italian wines have shallow punts. Several small, local wineries use bottles with no punt and some of them make surprisingly good wines, while some are swill. I would guess that large volume producers, such as Yellow Tail, can buy deep punted bottles cheaper than small wineries can buy flat bottom bottles.

For the record, I've never had a really good or great wine form a bottle that had no punt, read into that what you will.

I've had a few, w/o punts, that I thought were pretty decent. They've usually said "Ridge" on the label. But not any in the...uhhh..last 3 hrs.

Tom

So, by extrapolation, if someone were to extend the punt of the bottle all the way from the bottom to just beneath the cork, that would be the bestest wine of all.

Right?

For sure it would be the “tallest” 750 ml bottle you would ever see!

Salute

Of course, because this 'depth of punt' theory is well known and believed more by those who know less about wine, then marketers of plonk give the impression of quality by using deeper punted bottles.

Deeper punted bottles also look bigger on the shelf.

There was a time at many professional blind tastings when the label and neck of the bottle were covered to avoid identification of the winery. The punt, however, was exposed. Today bottles for blind tastings are placed primarily in sateen bags made for that purpose, those hiding the entire bottle, including the punt. The reason, the belief on the part of many that the depth or lack of a punt might have an unconscious influence on the evaulation of the quality of the wine.

Indeed so popular are punts these days that many wineries are putting their cheapest plonk into heavier, well indented bottles, raising their prices by 25-30% and promoting these as more "premium" wines.

Simply stated, the punt says absolutely nothing about the quality of the wine in the bottle. The one advantage of the punt these days is that it makes for far more elegant one-hand pouring from bottle to glass.

Best
Rogov

[James Roscoe]

Who ever made this up was some guy trying to compensate.

I think that most of the Muscadet that I own (and perhaps most of the Riesling, too) comes in bottles that lack punts. For the record, I consider those wines really, really good.
Mark Lipton

Very good point Mark, I was thinking reds in my mind but I realize I didn't state that. In any case I'm always prepared to be proven wrong, thanks

While I don't judge wine by the depth of the punt (or dimple) a guy called Dr Karl Blanks does. See here and here.

Mike