All About Magnums & Double Magnums — Does bottle size matter?
Does bottle size matter? Why magnums and double magnums age wine more gracefully — and why The Wine Monk started collecting them for milestone vintages.
Written by The Wine Monk · Singapore
"If a magnum is the perfect size for two gentlemen over lunch, especially if one isn't drinking, what's a Double Magnum?"
Large formats have always been an advisable collector's item if one intends to keep wines a few decades or more — because the wine ages slowly and gracefully in the bottle with a lower ratio of oxygen to liquid.
We became interested in Magnums and Double Magnums because a few years ago customers started reaching out for special years for their 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th birthdays.
Tignanello 1997 was one of the bottles we first sought. It did such a showing we immediately started looking for larger formats. Our collection has since grown to include magnums and double magnums across famous Tuscan and Piedmont estates — from Sandrone Barolo Aleste 2016 Magnum, the Brunello di Montalcino 2015 Magnum by Fattoria dei Barbi, to Tignanello 2016 Magnum and the extraordinary Lynch Bages 2010 and Cos d'Estournel 2016 from Bordeaux.
The first quote above is widely attributed to Sir Winston Churchill — who, incidentally, made Pol Roger his Champagne of choice for over 50 years. We carry Pol Roger Brut Réserve NV in our cellar.
