🍷 Jeroboam

A Jeroboam (jéroboam) holds 3 litres, the same as four standard bottles. The Comité Champagne lists it straight after the 1.5-litre Magnum, with the 4.5-litre Rehoboam next. For comparison, a magnum is two bottles and a Methuselah eight.

The name comes from the Bible, where Jeroboam was a king of Israel. The author of World Wide Words suggests Sir Walter Scott was the first to apply it to a bottle, probably as a joke, since the Bible calls Jeroboam a mighty man. Nobody knows who invented the rest of these names, and apart from magnum and Jeroboam they were rarely used seriously.

The law hardly touches this size. The lists in the annex to Directive 2007/45/EC stop at 1,500 ml for both still and sparkling wine, so the Jeroboam is not on them. What it does for wine is a separate matter. A 2023 study found that bigger champagne bottles keep dissolved CO2 much better, though it measured only 75 and 150 cl.

In practice a Jeroboam is a party. Above it come the Methuselah at 6 litres and the Salmanazar at 9. The whole run is on Wine bottle sizes, and the base of it is the Standard wine bottle (0.75 l).