Many wine bottles have indented bottoms, also known as punts. The indentations vary in size, and some believe that a larger punt means a higher quality of wine is inside the bottle. But is that true?
While punt-less bottles require less glass and are less expensive to manufacture, there is no known correlation to the quality of wine within. For instance, all bottles of Riesling lack a punt, due to a historically distinctive bottling technique in Germany.
However, some see larger punts as an advantage for reds, allowing better sediment separation for decanting. Stronger bottle strength is important for sparkling wine, too. So while punt size can indicate the cost of glass-production and larger punts are used for practical reasons, checking for punt size is a blunt tool at best in selecting a quality bottle of wine.
