WINE BOTTLE

A wine bottle is a bottle used for holding wine, generally made of glass. Some wines are fermented in the bottle; others are bottled only after fermentation.

Recently, the bottle has become a standard unit of volume to describe sales in the wine industry, measuring 750 milliliters (26 imp fl oz; 25 US fl oz)^. However, bottles are produced in a variety of volumes and shapes.

Wine bottles are traditionally sealed with cork, but screw-top caps are becoming popular, and there are several other methods used to seal a bottle.

Many traditional wine bottle sizes are named for Biblical kings and historical figures. The chart below lists the sizes of various wine bottles in multiples relating to a standard bottle of wine, which is 0.75 liters (0.20 US gal; 0.16 imp gal) (five 150 ml servings). The "wine glassful"—an official unit of the apothecaries' system of weights—is much smaller at 2.5 imp fl oz (71 ml).

Most champagne houses are unable to carry out secondary fermentation in bottles larger than a magnum due to the difficulty in riddling large, heavy bottles. After the secondary fermentation completes, the champagne must be transferred from the magnums into larger bottles, which results in a loss of pressure. Some believe this re-bottling exposes the champagne to greater oxidation and therefore results in an inferior product compared to champagne which remains in the bottle in which it was fermented.

COLOR

Clear colorless bottles have recently become popular with white wine producers in many countries, including Greece, Canada and New Zealand. Dark-colored bottles are most commonly used for red wines, but many white wines also still come in dark green bottles. The main reason for using colored or tinted glass is that natural sunlight can break down desirable antioxidants such as vitamin c and tannin in a wine over time, which affects stability and can cause a wine to prematurely oxidize. Dark glass can prevent oxidation and increase storage life. It is therefore mostly ready-to-drink white wines with a short anticipated storage lifespan which are bottled in clear colorless bottles.

PUNTS

A punt, also known as a kick-up, refers to the dimple at the bottom of a wine bottle. There is no consensus explanation for its purpose. The more commonly cited explanations include:

·         It is a historical remnant from the era when wine bottles were free blown using a blowpipe and pontil. This technique leaves a punt mark on the base of the bottle; by indenting the point where the pontil is attached, this scar would not scratch the table or make the bottle unstable.

·         It had the function of making the bottle less likely to topple over—a bottle designed with a flat bottom only needs a small imperfection to make it unstable—the dimple historically allowed for a larger margin of error.

·         It consolidates sediment deposits in a thick ring at the bottom of the bottle, preventing much/most of it from being poured into the glass; this may be more historical than a functional attribute, since most modern wines contain little or no sediment.

·         It increases the strength of the bottle, allowing it to hold the high pressure of sparkling wine/champagne.

·         It provides a grip for riddling a bottle of sparkling wine manually in the traditional champagne production process.

·         It consumes some volume of the bottle, allowing the bottle to appear larger for the same amount of wine, which may impress the purchaser.

·         Taverns had a steel pin set vertically in the bar. The empty bottle would be thrust bottom-end down onto this pin, puncturing a hole in the top of the punt, guaranteeing the bottle could not be refilled

·         It prevents the bottle from resonating as easily, decreasing the likelihood of shattering during transportation.

·         It allows bottles to be more easily stacked end to end.

·         Bottles could be stacked in cargo holds on ships without rolling around and breaking.

·         It makes the bottle easier to clean prior to filling with wine. When a stream of water is injected into the bottle and impacts the punt, it is distributed throughout the bottom of the bottle and removes residues.

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MANUFACTURING OF GLASS

In a commercial glass plant, sand is mixed with waste glass (from recycling collections), soda ash (sodium carbonate), and limestone (calcium carbonate) and heated in a furnace. The soda reduces the sand's melting point, which helps to save energy during manufacture, but it has an unfortunate drawback: it produces a kind of glass that would dissolve in water! The limestone is added to stop that happening. The end-product is called soda-lime-silica glass. It's the ordinary glass we can see all around us.

Once the sand is melted, it is either poured into molds to make bottles, glasses, and other containers, or "floated" (poured on top of a big vat of molten tin metal) to make perfectly flat sheets of glass for windows. Unusual glass containers are still sometimes made by "blowing" them. A "gob" (lump) of molten glass is wrapped around an open pipe, which is slowly rotated. Air is blown through the pipe's open end, causing the glass to blow up like a balloon. With skillful blowing and turning, all kinds of amazing shapes can be made

Glass makers use a slightly different process depending on the type of glass they want to make. Usually, other chemicals are added to change the appearance or properties of the finished glass. For example, iron and chromium based chemicals are added to the molten sand to make green-tinted glass. Oven-proof borosilicate glass (widely sold under the trademark PYREX®) is made by adding boron oxide to the molten mixture. Adding lead oxide makes a fine crystal glass that can be cut more easily; highly prized cut lead crystal sparkles with color as it refracts (bends) the light passing through it. Some special types of glass are made by a different manufacturing process. Bulletproof glass is made from a sandwich or laminate of multiple layers of glass and plastic bonded together. Toughened glass used in car windshields is made by cooling molten glass very quickly to make it much harder. Stained (colored) glass is made by adding metallic compounds to glass while it is molten; different metals give the separate segments of glass their different colors.

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HISTORY OF GLASS

The ancient Roman historian Pliny suggested that Phoenician merchants had made the first glass the region of Syria around 5000BC. But according to the archaeological evidence, the first man made glass was in Eastern Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3500BC and the first glass vessels were made about 1500BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia. For the next 300 years, the glass industry was increased rapidly and then declined. In Mesopotamia it was revived in the 700BC and in Egypt in the 500’s BC. For the next 500 years, Egypt, Syria and the other countries along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea were centers for glass manufacturing. 

In the beginning it was very hard and slow to manufacture glass. Glass melting furnaces were small and the heat they produced was hardly enough to melt glass. But in the 1st century BC, Syrian craftsmen invented the blow pipe. This revolutionary discovery made glass production easier, faster and cheaper. Glass production flourished in the Roman Empire and spread from Italy to all countries under its rule. In 1000 AD the Egyptian city of Alexandria was the most important center of glass manufacture. Throughout Europe the miraculous art of making stained glass on churches and cathedrals across the continent reached its height in the finest Chatres and Canterbury cathedral windows produced in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Glass Making History

The history of glass making can be traced back to 3000 BCE in Mesopotamia. Glass appears to have been produced as far back as 1500 BC by the Egyptians and perhaps the Phoenicians. Glass uses and manufacturing developments have gone through an interesting evolution throughout human history, influenced by many cultures including those in Africa, China and Europe.

Stained Glass History

The beginning of stained glass windows dates back in ancient times. Both the Egyptians and the Romans manufactured small colored glass objects. Stained glass became art form sometime in the fourth century when Christian began to build elaborate churches to celebrate their religion.

Glass Blowing History

Glassblowing was invented during the 1st century BC by the glass makers of Syria. This revolutionary technique made glass production easier and quickly. As it became well known, different cultures, religious, and regions adapted it for unique purposes and glass blowing quickly became a favorite glass made method.

Glass Timeline

The earliest known man made glass is in the form of Egyptian beads and date back to 3100 BC. The first glass was produced probably in Egypt in 1500BC. Technique of glass blowing was introduced in the Babylon area in 1AD.

Safety glass

Safety glass was invented by a French scientist, Edouard Benedictus, in 1903

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