Why bigger is better

Most people think there's something rather ostentatious, even vulgar, about drinking wine in big bottles: even more vulgar are City bankers (perhaps no longer) and Russian oligarchs spraying jeroboams of Champagne over their friends - a waste of normally very good and expensive champagne.

But part of the pleasure in drinking wine is the perception of what you are about to drink - an attractive label, a decent looking bottle etc. So, a magnum at a dinner party is much more attractive than a couple of screw-capped plastic bottles.

Indeed, give your friends the same, rather ordinary, wine decanted into a plastic bottle and into a normal glass bottle, and 19 out of 20 will prefer the wine from the glass bottle - their senses have already made that judgment call.

Actually, wine in big bottles is also better wine. Wine matures very slowly in bottles as a cork (intentionally) is not a perfect seal. The bigger the bottle, the slower the ageing process; and the slower the aging process the better the wine. (I am of course referring to red wines and the better white wines. Cheap wine, particularly white should be drunk young as it will get worse, not better, with ageing.) As a very broad rule of thumb, a bottle of wine (0.75 litres) that takes five years to reach maturity will take seven in a magnum (1.5 litres) and 10 in a double magnum (three litres).