but why does older European wine bottles

have high inverted bases.? 

Py,

 

I have heard two differing opinions on this one:

1. To assist in separating the sediment (lees) in the wine - they tend to rest in that nice little valley around the perimeter. This was particularly useful for champagne, where the junk was apparently pretty thick and sued to cloud the wine. (Now they turn the bottles upside down so the stuff gathers in the neck and lightly freeze the lees, then pop the stuff out (a process called degorgement).

 

2. To prevent any pontil glass residue, used in the fabricating process, from preventing the bottle from standing properly. When blowing glass vessels, before you cut it off the blow-pipe it is attached to the pontil rod on the opposite, closed end of the piece, using a small dab of hot glass which is on the end of the pontil. When the vessel is completed, you break it off the pontil, but frequently some of the pontil glass residue remains on the bottom of the vessel. You can grind it off but that's a pain (certainly in a large production. If you invert the base just a bit, there's no problem. This of course doesn't explain why inversion remains, when vessels aren't hand blown into molds.

 

Both sound reasonable to me, but I'd like to hear from Ralph before making a pronouncement

.

Twyb.