Is wine that comes in big bottles, like magnums, better quality than the same wine in standard size bottles?
Tracy, March 2007 While bigger bottle formats are fun, especially when you are opening them with lots of friends around, the primary advantage of larger bottles in terms of the quality of the wine is that they tend to age better. I once had the opportunity to participate in a tasting where we compared the same wine from a standard bottle (750ml), a magnum (1.5L or the equivalent of 2 standard bottles), and a double magnum (3.0 L which holds the volume of 4 standard bottles and referred to as a jeroboam for Champagne and Burgundy). Of the group of six who sat in on this blind tasting, there was no consensus as to whether the wine was better in a particular size. The wines we tasted were all meant for immediate to short-term consumption, so for the most part, there may be no improvement in the quality of the wine in a bigger bottle. But, they are fun! I recently opened a bottle of my favorite Zinfandel and it had these shiny little glass-like particles on the cork and around the lip of t
