🍷 Methuselah
Also known as: Methuselah, mathusalem, 6 litre bottle, 6 l bottle, 600 cl bottle, eight-bottle format
The Methuselah is a large wine bottle of 6 litres, eight standard bottles, named after the long-lived patriarch of the Old Testament.
A Methuselah (mathusalem) is a wine bottle of 6 litres, eight standard bottles in one. In the Comité Champagne's list it sits after the 4.5-litre Rehoboam and before the 9-litre Salmanazar. The Rehoboam before it is six bottles and the Salmanazar after it twelve.
It is named after the patriarch Methuselah of the Old Testament, famed for his long life, so it is tempting to think the bottle lets wine live longer. The author of World Wide Words warns against that reading: the names have no link to the age of the wine, and nobody knows who coined them. In print, Methuselah first appears alongside Salmanazar and Balthazar in André Simon's Dictionary of Wine of 1935.
The law does not list this size either. The annex to Directive 2007/45/EC stops at 1.5 litres for still and sparkling wine. Still, the idea behind the name is not baseless. A 2023 study measured champagne in 75 and 150 cl bottles and found that larger bottles hold dissolved CO2 much better. It did not test a 6-litre bottle.
Compare the neighbours: a Jeroboam is half of a Methuselah, at 3 litres, and a Salmanazar is half as much again. The whole ladder is on Wine bottle sizes.
Facts
How it connects to Wine
🍷 Methuselah → kind of → 🍷 Wine bottle sizes → kind of → 🍷 Wine bottle ← packed in ← 🍷 Wine
Links
- Part of
- 🍷 Wine bottle sizes
Frequently asked questions
How many bottles make a Methuselah?
Eight standard bottles, which is 6 litres, according to the Comité Champagne.
Who was Methuselah?
An Old Testament patriarch. The name was given to the bottle by people unknown, and it appears in print in André Simon's 1935 dictionary.
Is it true that the name means the wine lasts for centuries?
No. World Wide Words stresses that the names are not tied to wine age. The 2023 ageing study compared 75 and 150 cl bottles only.
Is a Methuselah covered by EU bottle-size rules?
No. The annex to Directive 2007/45/EC lists wine up to 1.5 litres, so 6 litres is not on it.
What is the next size after the Methuselah?
The Salmanazar, 9 litres or twelve bottles, then the Balthazar at 12 litres.
Similar
🍷 Half bottle (0.375 l) · 🍷 Jeroboam · 🍷 Salmanazar · 🍷 Balthazar · 🍷 Nebuchadnezzar · 🍷 Magnum
Sources
- Comité Champagne. Factsheet Champagne Bottle Sizes
- World Wide Words. Names of large wine bottles (Q&A)
- Directive 2007/45/EC (nominal quantities for prepacked products), Annex: wine volumes
- Liger-Belair G. et al. Losses of Yeast-Fermented CO2 during Prolonged Champagne Aging: Yes, the Bottle Size Does Matter! ACS Omega 2023, 8(25)