🍷 Bordeaux bottle

A Bordeaux bottle (bordelaise, claret bottle) is the classic 0.75-litre wine bottle with a tall conical profile and a deep punt in the base. It is named after Bordeaux, where a similar bottle was made again and again until the shape became the region's own.

Nobody designed it by decree. Château Lafite Rothschild's journal says the regional names grew out of repetition, and that until the 1920s wine merchants did the bottling and picked the shape and glass colour themselves. Historian Reynald Abad adds that British high society drove the early trade in bottled Bordeaux, while bottling stayed with merchants rather than châteaux. A royal declaration of 1735 fixed content and glass weight only. Shapes stayed varied.

For scale, the glassmaker Saverglass still makes a replica it calls Bordelaise 1855. It stands 300.5 mm tall, weighs 760 g and has a punt 58 mm deep. Its Burgundy replica is 303 mm tall and 842 g, with a body 92.9 mm across. Both hold 75 cl.

Modern bottles lose weight. In 2023 Verallia launched Bordelaise Air at 300 g, about a quarter lighter than a classic one, with the same silhouette, in antique green, green or clear flint glass. If you are exploring the whole family, start with Wine bottle, then look at Burgundy bottle, Champagne bottle and Magnum.