Large Format

As Winston Churchill once remarked, “A magnum is the perfect size for two gentlemen over lunch, especially if one isn’t drinking.”

Sometimes a bottle just isn’t enough and when it comes to celebration, a larger format is always called for. There are different theories as to the origins of the names for each of the different bottles. One theory was that it possibly arose from the fact that, once upon a time, the bottle manufacturers were predominately Jewish. Another theory is that the names were dreamt up at the end of the nineteenth century by champagne merchants who wanted to associate champagne, usually consumed on festive occasions, with the pomp and circumstance of ancient Middle Eastern civilizations.

Magnum – 1.5 litres (2 bottles)
Jeroboam – 3 litres (4 bottles) Founder & first King of Israel, 931-910BC.
Rehoboam – 4.5 litres (6 bottles) Son of Solomon, King of Judea, 922-908BC. (No longer produced as the size has been outlawed by US and EU regulations.)
Methuselah – 6 litres (8 bottles) Biblical patriarch who lived to the age of 969.
Salmanazar – 9 litres (12 bottles) King of Assyria, 859-824BC.
Balthazar – 12 litres (16 bottles) Regent of Babylon, son of Nabonide, 539BC.
Nebuchadnezzar – 15 litres (20 bottles) King of Babylon, 605-562BC.
Solomon – 18 litres (24 bottles) King of Israel, Son of David.
Primat or Goliath – 27 Litres (36 Bottles) Stoned and defeated by David.
Melchizedek or Midas – 30 litres (40 bottles) King of Salem.