Fine wine
A market of a few thousand serious participants, priced in cases of twelve, settled in bonded warehouses, and quoted almost entirely gross of cost. It has had a boom and a twenty-four percent correction inside four years and almost nobody outside the trade noticed either.
Large formats age more slowly and carry a scarcity premium buyers pay for on purpose. What they do not do, despite the intuition, is cost less to store: bonded storage is charged per slot, and a slot holds one magnum exactly as well as it holds a twelve-bottle case. Nine sizes, drawn to true scale from volume and height, not eyeballed.
Half bottle
375ml · 0.5 btl
Bottle
750ml · 1 btl
Magnum
1.5L · 2 btl
Double Magnum
3L · 4 btl
Jeroboam
4.5L · 6 btl
Imperial
6L · 8 btl
Salmanazar
9L · 12 btl
Balthazar
12L · 16 btl
Nebuchadnezzar
15L · 20 btl
| Bordeaux name | Volume | Bottles | Burgundy name | Height |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half bottle | 375 ml | 0.5 | Half bottle | ~24 cm |
| Bottle | 750 ml | 1 | Bottle | ~30 cm |
| Magnum | 1.5 L | 2 | Magnum | ~38 cm |
| Double Magnum | 3 L | 4 | Jeroboamdiffers | ~45 cm |
| Jeroboam | 4.5 L | 6 | Rehoboamdiffers | ~50 cm |
| Imperial | 6 L | 8 | Methuselahdiffers | ~56 cm |
| Salmanazar | 9 L | 12 | Salmanazar | ~61 cm |
| Balthazar | 12 L | 16 | Balthazar | ~68 cm |
| Nebuchadnezzar | 15 L | 20 | Nebuchadnezzar | ~78 cm |
Bordeaux and Burgundy name the same volumes differently above the double magnum. A “Jeroboam” is 4.5L in Bordeaux and 3L in Burgundy — always check the region before you order one.
Per 750ml, in the magnum
£140.00
against £120.00 for a bottle
Format premium
+16.7%
you are paying up for the format
Storage, per 750ml per year
£7.00
against £1.17 in a twelve-bottle case
A magnum holds 2 bottles of wine in one slot, where a case holds twelve. So the same storage fee covers 6.0× less wine, and the format costs you £116.67 more to cellar over 10 years on top of the £40.00 you paid over the equivalent in bottles. Call it £156.67 all in. Large formats are not an economy. You pay for them twice, and what you are buying is the slower ageing, the scarcity, and the table it will eventually sit on.
Storage is charged per bonded slot, and a slot holds one magnum exactly as well as it holds a twelve-bottle case — some warehouses charge large formats by volume instead, which makes this neutral rather than unfavourable. Check your own warehouse's terms.