Niepoort levels
Posted: 16:59 Sun 07 Jul 2019
This is a little exercise that I've been meaning to do for ages and have finally got round to - determining equivalent levels on Niepoort bottles.
As we all know, it's very hard when looking at that swept neck to decide whether the level is IN or BN etc. Moreover, this is not an exact science as the necks of port bottles vary in their diameter, and consequently, capacity.
However after messing around with various empty bottles, I've worked out the following ready reckoner, using a Niepoort '80 VP bottle. When I get the chance, I will check to see if there's any variation between different batches of these bottles.
Using a graduated builder's set square, measure the distance from the top of the bottle down to the level of the wine. If the bottle has a T-stopper, you will need to subtract the thickness from the measurement.
A distance of under 6cm represents high fill - (a 750ml fill comes to 6.5cm down)
Anything less than 8cm should be considered In Neck (IN)
8 - 8.5cm equates to Base of Neck (BN)
Greater than 8.5cm and we move into very top shoulder territory (VTS)
After this it gets tricky, as this is where the Niepoort bottle widens out rapidly, there is also a lot of volume variation in other bottle designs as we move from VTS to TS to MS etc.
One of my reference bottles whilst doing this was an Oporto bottled Offley '63 - I was quite surprised to discover that this bottle was slightly under size - a 750mL fill reached the ring on the neck, about 15mm from the top of the bottle. The most this bottle could have ever held was about 735mL.
How a glass bottle maker could get this wrong amazes me..
As we all know, it's very hard when looking at that swept neck to decide whether the level is IN or BN etc. Moreover, this is not an exact science as the necks of port bottles vary in their diameter, and consequently, capacity.
However after messing around with various empty bottles, I've worked out the following ready reckoner, using a Niepoort '80 VP bottle. When I get the chance, I will check to see if there's any variation between different batches of these bottles.
Using a graduated builder's set square, measure the distance from the top of the bottle down to the level of the wine. If the bottle has a T-stopper, you will need to subtract the thickness from the measurement.
A distance of under 6cm represents high fill - (a 750ml fill comes to 6.5cm down)
Anything less than 8cm should be considered In Neck (IN)
8 - 8.5cm equates to Base of Neck (BN)
Greater than 8.5cm and we move into very top shoulder territory (VTS)
After this it gets tricky, as this is where the Niepoort bottle widens out rapidly, there is also a lot of volume variation in other bottle designs as we move from VTS to TS to MS etc.
One of my reference bottles whilst doing this was an Oporto bottled Offley '63 - I was quite surprised to discover that this bottle was slightly under size - a 750mL fill reached the ring on the neck, about 15mm from the top of the bottle. The most this bottle could have ever held was about 735mL.
How a glass bottle maker could get this wrong amazes me..