Buying Non-750ml Formats...Regrets and Advice

Hey Everyone, I’ve developed more interest in magnums within the last year or so. Having a good track record in terms of aging and also the fun of opening a larger format bottle at a get-together are both appealing to me. For anything larger than a magnum, it’d have to be a wine I know I’ll love or that I know would be drank very easily (champagne etc) but I think most of the time anything larger than a 1.5L wouldn’t be very practical for me. I have a mild interest in 375ml but am hesitant due to not much experience with them and knowing how well they age.

So, how often do any of you buy formats that aren’t 750ml? What are your qualifications for pulling the trigger on any of these?
Ever had any regrets that you bought too many or too little/none at all?

I love 375s. I have some mags but relatively few. Storage is an issue.

375s are great for Sauternes

I definitely understand the issue with storage of large format bottles.

Have you found 375ml bottles any more or less consistent than 750ml?

For what, long term aging? I usually use them to drink early while larger formats rest.

I hate having magnums that I bought years ago that I no longer want to drink because my tastes have changed. It’s hard to generate much excitement about opening them. When I do have a larger crowd to entertain, I feel like opening stuff I like NOW. So the old stuff sits there gathering dust. These aren’t trophy wines so not too motivated to go through hassle of selling them.

I guess my advice is to be wary before buying a bunch of magnums. All those magic opportunities to open them don’t really pop up all that often – at least for me.

On the other hand, I love 375s as my wife isn’t much of a drinker. The problem is many quality producers don’t want the hassle of making them. And when you find them, you choke a bit on the cost of a half often being signficantly higher than half the price of the 750ml. I’ve gotten over that, as I realize that I often dump wine from an unfinished 750 anyway.

Mags do work best for Champagne. It’s amazing how quickly they will be downed with a crowd! And 375s are a godsend for Sauternes – though the 750s do hold up the best of any wine I have found many days after opening.

I like 375ml and 750ml. 375s are great for drinking alone or something you wont drink a lot of in 1 sitting, eg. Sauternes. I like to get them both. Anything bigger than 750ml i regret. Id rather pull out 2 750s.

Thank you for your input. This is the kind of response I was looking for. I suspect that many people have had similar experiences with large format bottles in that you don’t always end up having as many opportunities to open them. I guess the best thing to do is be very picky about choosing them.

I’d like to go for some 375s but I have been hesitant so it does help to hear that you’ve found them quite useful. I foresee some circumstances when they’ll come in handy so I will have to start buying some here and there.

Mid-term to long-term aging I suppose. Bordeaux, Piedmont 375s for example. Yes, if I have some 750s I’d go for the 375s earlier on but how successfully will 375s age in the 10-20+ year range? (assuming proper storage)

Mags can be fun, but as already said, you have to have the occasion to drink them. If it’s a larger family gathering, or a party of non-wine-geeks, they can work pretty well. But a mag of a higher end wine just gets that much harder to open, if you know what I mean.

If you participate in offline events with other wine geeks, mags are particularly difficult, since everyone will be bringing wine, and finishing off a mag is almost impossible.

Why would you buy 375 to age 10-20 years? Makes no sense.

We have a pretty big Christmas party every year. I have begun consciously acquiring something old in a large format, usually 3L or 6L, to open for the party. It doesn’t last long. I have to take my wife some right away because otherwise she’ll be coming for some after the bottle is empty and then she protests “How come I didn’t get some???” We have enough people for holiday dinners that a nice mag is usually about right for the main course. Other than events like that, though, we don’t open mags very often. I have a few 375’s, mostly because I don’t see them very often in the wines I normally collect.

Why does this make no sense? Please elaborate.

The only 375 I would age for an extended period of time are Sauternes, but ymmv.

Mich@el, in addressing 375s in this post, I’m looking to get feedback on why people buy them and whether they’ve found the 375 format useful enough to continue to keep buying them or not. Based on the fact that larger formats usually age with more consistent results, I assume that the drawback with 375s is that they will not have quite as good results when aged for longer periods. Since I do not have experience in doing so, I’m asking everyone here. That’s why I asked you to elaborate when you said “Why would you buy 375 to age 10-20 years? Makes no sense” So have you had bad experiences with aging 375s?

I have only aged Sauternes in 375 for any real period of time. I have a pretty large amount of 375 (~5%) or so of bottles but they are meant for early drinking including bottles of Krug, Mugnier, Grivot, etc.

I have done fine aging 375s. Problem is they are a little too small. I love the Rhys futures, where I can buy 500 ml bottles.

Magnums are cool, but it’s easy to end up with too many. We don’t host many dinner parties anymore, and so the venue for magnums has largely dried up.

The only mags+ I buy are of Champagne. Otherwise, it’s so hard to figure out the “right” time for so much wine.

I’ll respectfully disagree with Michael on 375’s. I have literally hundreds of them (average age per CellarTracker of 21 years), and they age reasonably similar to 750ml’s of the same wine. Maybe a bit faster but nothing to worry about. Just drank a 375 of 1996 Pichon Lalande tonight and it was great. Part of me subscribes to the old Kermit Lynch line, something like “any self respecting wine drinker can handle a 750”. But for all the reasons you can think of (spouse not drinking as much, work night, kids, age) I’m as happy to have the half bottles as I am to have lots of mags. I don’t know a single person who has a bunch of 375’s that regrets it.
On the mag side, I agree with Mathew’s post that if you don’t like the wine anymore, the mag will be a vivid reminder of that. But, for wine you like, for every mag you have down the line you’ll wish you had another. You can’t have enough mags. Also, agree with the posts that champagne in mags is always good and something you wouldn’t regret.

Don’t get me wrong, I love 375s, I just drink them; so they don’t get aged.