Prove to me Magnums (1.5L) are better

WINE TALK
1

I hear and read it all the time. Tastes so much better out of magnum. Why would it be so?

I get the thought for aging LONG term with the head space volume ect.
Can we do a blind tasting though where the visual power of the bottle is out of the equation?

2

champagne

3

The poster child.

4

Let’s do a side by side…I bet you like the 750 fifty percent of the time

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5

A lot of the time it’s not apples to apples; producers may keep champagne bottled in mag on the lees longer.

6

Valid point, but let’s not praise the bottle. That’s a different wine.

7

I’m not really sure I generally think champagne is better than in mag vs bottle vs half bottle. I generally like it in all formats. I probably drink more 375s of champagne than most (because I have thousands of 375 of Krug) but I find them great and more accessible than 750 and certainly magnum.

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8

Try a bottle of '15 LGA next to a magnum.

9

Let’s do it…blind without the big bottle staring at us.

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10

If you’ve never had a magnum of '07 Chateauneuf du Pape with sushi, are you even living?

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11

It’s twice as much wine, easily better than a 750ml.

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12

Plus it’s more than twice as baller.

13

This is so so true. How many times do you go through a 750 quickly in a larger setting and don’t get a second pour or just a chance to let the wine evolve over time.

14

But is it really better than two 750ml?

15

Don’t really think I’ve heard it said as “better” per se, but (for reds) more age-worthy as there’s a smaller air/wine ratio given you’re using the same size cork. So that means it ages better, which is science. QED.

16

It’s true

17

with champagne? i’ve experienced it many times. with aged wines, it’s not even close. but even new release wines, the magnum is better.

i think you also need to define “better” here - it provides more pleasure for most people that know and enjoy champagne.

it goes the other way as well - 375s of champagne don’t show as well as a 750s.

for still wines, as others have already mentioned, you’ll see the advantages of a larger format with age. again, “better” is an opinion that will likely be shared among people that know wine.

18

If you assume bottle variation is constant across bottle sizes, then 2x750ml gives you twice the chance of a stinker compared to the Mag.

So yes, for a given amount of wine, on a “loss reduction function” mathematically, it is better.

…Of course if bottle variation is random, 2x750 is also extremely unlikely to have TWO stinkers, but who wants to live in fear?

tl;dr Nebuchadnezzars FTW

19

I mentioned in the op

20

I don’t think “better” is the right term.

I drank a mag of Krug 164 in 2019; it wasn’t nearly ready.

A 375 of the same bottling that year was wonderful and a 750 opened up with time.

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