In Praise of Half-Bottles

The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Tennessee, USA, has the greatest collection of half-bottles in the world.

Half-bottles are wonderful. Particularly if you are dining on your own.

A half-bottle allows us to enjoy less of one wine so we can savour one more half-bottle of another. The other bonus of half-bottles is they age and evolve considerably faster than a full 750 ml bottle.

I particularly love half-bottle champagnes as, important as the bubbles are, they are more calm and the fruit rounder. The same is true of whites which acidity becomes more tame and not so piercing. The speeded up evolution allows the fruit to become more integrated with the freshness earlier. The texture is smoother, even creamy.

Reds come into their own in half-bottles.

This is particularly so of those varieties or region where the tannins and acidity need more time to soften such as Nebbiolo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Syrah. The wines are more aromatic because of the greater advanced evolution. The tannins are silkier and if decanting is needed, a shorter duration.

Burgundy also benefits being in half- bottles because the climate being continental, the Pinot Noir shows so much more gloriously with time, particularly the great terroirs.

Here is just a dozen of The Barn at Blackberry Farm’s 146 half-bottles.