At a birthday party the other weekend, we shared an elegant Champagne from a supersized bottle (pictured above). I’m the first to admit I’m not a great judge of volumes. I didn’t think it was quite a Nebuchadnezzar, a monumental 15-litre vessel named after the great Babylonian leader that requires a crane to pour. It did however, seem way mightier than a magnum.
My final guess was that it was an Imperial – that’s equivalent to eight normal 750 ml bottles. I was comforted to discover that recent research suggests that my slightly skewed perception of the bottle’s precise dimensions might not have just been down to the bubbles and celebratory atmosphere.