Gerry S. was wondering, “the purpose of different bottle shapes for different wines!? like the deeply concave base for red wine?”
Wine bottles come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. The shape of the bottle usually communicates which region the wine is from and the grape varieties used. This holds mostly true with wines from France, where each region by tradition uses a different style of bottle. There are roughly 6-7 examples of wine bottle shapes, but I will only discuss the most popular and most used. There are three parts of the bottle one must also be familiar with: the neck, shoulder and punt. The neck, I hope doesn’t need an explanation, the shoulders are litterally the part below the neck and the punt is the bottom underside of the bottle.
We’ll start with one of the most common bottle shapes, the “bordeaux” style.
In Bordeaux,France, these bottles denote the use of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. White wines which use this shape are made from Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle. Bordeaux wines are usually long lived which is why the shape came into being. After long periods of cellaring, these wines will produce a lot of sediment. The steepness and height of the shoulders are able to catch the sediment when the wine is being poured. The flat sides also allow the wines to stack and cellar comfortably. This bottle shape is also used a lot in America and in Italy as well.
This shape, with a slightly wider base, sturdier frame and gently sloping shoulders hails from Burgundy. Bottles like this are filled with Pinot Noir (red) and Chardonnay(white). These bottles shapes seems very elegant to me. They don’t have sharp edges, they look gracefull and seem to have a more feminine quality about them. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines are very elegant and round yet, can still deliver through a full body and an intense depth of flavor.
Ok Gerry, this is where the punt of the bottle comes into play. The punt is the concave base at the bottom of the bottle. Champagne bottles use the thickest glass and have the largest punts. 
The pressure in Champagne bottles is between 70 and 90 pounds per square inch. That is about 2-3 times the pressure in your cars tires and about equal to the pressure in the tires of a double decker bus! The glass for this wine must be thicker, the base wider and the punt deeper. The punt adds much needed stregnth to the bottle, this is the reason why some bottles have bigger punts than others. Here’s a good way to make money off of your friends. Bet you friend that you can drink from a wine bottle with out opening it. Now all you have to do is find a bottle with a large punt, pour water into it, drink and collect your money. Thanks Stephanie for teaching me this joke. This picture also shows the range of sizes fr Champagne and other wine bottles. The second one from the left is the standard .750mL.
Here is the last classic example of a wine bottle shape. This shape comes from Alsace, France and parts of Germany and Austria.
There is wide variety of wines that use this bottle and all of them are white and can range from totally dry to totally sweet. Pinot Gris, Riesling, Gerwurtraminer(GWT), Muscat, and Pinot Blanc are some of the common varieties. This shape is longer, almost flat shoulders, sexier, and usually has a smaller punt. This shape reminds me of a tall sexy girl with gentle curves and an essence of classiness, reminiscent of the wines in these bottles.
Sometimes the quality of a particular bottle of wine can be denoted from the the quality of glass used, but this is not true 100% percent of the time. If you have no idea what you are looking for in a wine store do three things: first contact me, then ask your wine dude at the store, and lastly pick up and feel the bottle. If the bottle feels heavy, has thick glass and a big punt you may have found a good bottle of wine. Of course this is just superficial and a bottle like that could be pretty bad. So there ya go, a nice little primer on wine bottle shapes. Thanks Gerry!
