Magnums and Melchizedeks

I’ve been drinking a glass of red wine every night the past week for medical reasons – for medical reasons! – and decided to do a little research into the whole wine thing. Back 15, 20 years ago, when engaged to the Mrs., we drank a lot of wine – for medical reasons! No, just kidding. We drank a lot of wine because we were young, carefree, and had money to spend. We ate out a lot, at nice establishments, and it just went with the turf. We kept a log of the wines we drank, our personal ratings of them, had our favorites. For our honeymoon, we spent a week in Napa Valley touring a dozen vineyards and wineries.

Now I’ve been drinking reds for a few days now, and picked up a book on the subject. Immediately, as always, I am drawn towards the esoterica. With a fascination I haven’t had since I discovered the word hogshead, I learned how bottles of wine – the actual bottles, mind you, not what’s in them – are classified.

For some reason, the dominant theme seems to be Biblical Babylonian.

Let me explain.

Your average bottle of wine is 750 ml. That’s about a fifth of a gallon or four-fifths of a quart (I’m visually comparing the bottle of wine to cartons of milk here). Or a little more than three cups. An eighth more, to be precise.

How many glasses can one get out of the standard bottle of wine? Depends. Four to six. A single drink bottle, the little bottles called piccolos, contain 187.5 ml, so there’s four of them in a standard bottle. When the wife and I split a bottle, we each usually take slightly smaller portions, about two-and-a-half glasses each. Six equal glasses of wine from a bottle seems a little amateurish to me.

Anyway, the standard bottle of wine is 750 ml, or 75 percent of a liter. I learned there’s a name for each increase in size, and, interestingly enough, the system of nomenclature revolves around either Biblical or Babylonian names. Names of kings and emperors and the like.

A Magnum holds 2 standard bottles of wine in one, or 1.5 liters.

A Jeroboam is 4 bottles. 3 liters.

A Rehoboam is 6 bottles. 4.5 liters.

Jeroboam and Rehoboam are found in the Old Testament. Jeroboam was the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Rehoboam first king of the Southern Kingdom of Judea.

At my current rate of consumption, I’ll go through a Rehoboam and a Magnum of wine a month.

Or slightly less than a Methusaleh. A Methusaleh is 8 bottles of wine, or 6 liters. I used to drink a Methuselah of Diet Coke a month, but I don’t do it anymore now. For medical reasons.

A Methusaleh is also sometimes referred to as an Imperial.

How far up the scale can we go? Oh, far. We can go far. For instance:

A Salmanazar contains 12 standard bottles of wine, or 9 liters of the good grape juice. He was an Assyrian King.

A Belshazzar contains 16 standard bottles of wine, or 12 liters. He was a Babylonian ruler.

A Nebuchadnezzar contains 20 standard bottles of wine, or 15 liters. He was a more famous Babylonian ruler.

The next size up has two names, either a Melchior (one of the traditional three wise men) or a Solomon (King of Israel, David’s son). They hold 24 standard bottles of wine, or 18 liters.

See the pattern? Every new label is an increase in 4 bottles and 3 liters.

Here’s where things break down a bit. A Sovereign is 35 bottles, which comes to 26.25 liters.

Then we return to normal. Well, normal for incredibly thirsty individuals. A Goliath is 36 standard bottles, or 27 liters. Finally, a Melchizedek – or a Midas – I can’t decide which I like better – is 40 standard bottles, or 30 liters of wine. Melchizedek was the King of Salem found in Genesis chapter 14, and Midas is that guy from Greek mythology whose touch turns objects to gold.

SCENE: local liquor store in a small, suburban northern New Jersey town

CLERK: Hey Hopper! Another Melchizedek of Sam Adams?

HOPPER: No thanks! I’m a piccolo-of-wine-a-day guy from now on – for medical reasons!

Note and Public Service Announcement: For those of you wondering, the medical reason is not entirely in jest; it’s real. I’ve been diagnosed with hypertension. “The Silent Killer” – high blood pressure. Drinking a glass of red wine a day lowers it. So does cutting back on salt, processed foods, and Diet Coke, as well as increasing fruits and vegetables, exercising 30 minutes a day, and eating a square of high-percentage cocoa dark chocolate. All of which I’ve done on a daily basis. To date I’ve lost six pounds and feel a hundred times better than two weeks ago.