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). The same wine in a half-bottle (0.375 litres) will reach maturity in three years.

One of the finest bottles of wine I have ever drunk was a double magnum of Chateau Leoville Barton 1929, with the Barton family at their Chateau. We were all asked to guess the year: most of us thought it was a great vintage from the 1980s – probably 1982. It tasted young, fresh and stunningly delicious. That was largely down to the bottle size but also because the wine had not been moved from its underground cellar from the day it was bottled to the day we drunk it.

Do therefore buy bigger bottles if you can, and if you want to cellar the wine - it's well worth it. There's one notable exception: dry sherry only retains its freshness for about 48 hours after the bottle is open – go for half bottles! ·