Wine Bottle Sizes Explained: From Half Bottle to Nebuchadnezzar

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Wine is one of the few products sold in bottles named after Babylonian kings. Between the tiny split on your flight tray and the 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar that needs two people to pour, there is a full ladder of sizes, and the size genuinely changes how the wine ages and how the table feels. Here is the complete guide.

The Full Ladder

Split (piccolo), 187.5ml. A single generous glass; the airline and celebration-fizz format.
Half bottle (demi), 375ml. Two to three glasses. Perfect for solo dinners and expensive sweet wines.
Standard, 750ml. The world’s default: five 150ml glasses.
Magnum, 1.5L. Two bottles in one, ten glasses, and the collector’s favourite for ageing.
Double magnum / Jeroboam, 3L. Four bottles. The names start getting biblical here.
Rehoboam, 4.5L. Six bottles, mostly seen in Champagne.
Methuselah / Imperial, 6L. Eight bottles; Methuselah in Champagne, Imperial in Bordeaux.
Salmanazar, 9L. Twelve bottles, a full case in one vessel.
Balthazar, 12L. Sixteen bottles.
Nebuchadnezzar, 15L. Twenty bottles, named for the king of Babylon, and the reason sommeliers have strong forearms.

Why the biblical kings? Nobody knows for certain; the tradition emerged in Champagne in the 19th century, and the names stuck because they are unforgettable, which in marketing terms makes them perfect.

Wine Bottle Sizes on Sommo — AI Wine Scanner, WSET Prep & Wine Journal App

Wine Bottle Sizes Explained: From Half Bottle to Nebuchadnezzar

The Full Ladder