Question about Japanese wine bottle sizes

The half bottle of Japanese wine I unscrewed for tonight's dinner was 360 ml. Standard bottles are 720 ml. I believe sake comes in bottles of these sizes as well. Are these bottle sizes unique to Japan, or are they used elsewhere?

BTW the wine, NV Soryu Winery "No Additives" Red Wine from Yamanashi Prefecture was nothing to write home about. It was just, well, "grapey". A look at the fine print confirmed it was made from Concord. I soon switched to something else that matched better with the meal.

cheers,
al

The size of the bottle may be different because of how it is shipped- Palletized Freight or Non Palletized Freight; weight restrictions on the cargo.

Salute

Hi Alex,
Found this on a sake site

As sake becomes more visible outside of Japan, certainly more and more consumers are apt to wonder about the size of the bottles. Most premium sake these days comes in 720 milliliter bottles. What's up wi'dat? Why don't they use 750 milliliters like the rest of the world? And then there are the large versions, the awkwardly-sized 1.8 liter bottles. Why not 1.5 liters or even 2 liters like everyone else? The answer lies in the traditional measurements of Japan.

For more check this out:

http://www.esake.com/Knowledge/Newslett ... 004_8.html

Scroll down about a third of the way.

Salute

Thanks, Victor! Makes sense that this is something that carried over from the world of sake.

Thanks, Victor.

masu and go, sho and to, koku and shaku.

Great words, and a nice footnote to Magnum, Jeroboam, Methuselah, Salmanazar, Balthazar, Nabuchadnezzar, et al.

Regards, Bob

Other bizarre sized bottles include 70 cl (700ml) Chateau-Grillet, and 62 cl (620ml) Vin Jaune. The Grillet is labelled 750ml for the US market but isn't. Of course the standard Tokaji bottle is 500ml, as are an increasing number of dry wines as well.

I'd like to comment on the wine - I worked in Yamanashi for six months last year and while I don't know the particular wine or winery I would very much advise people to steer clear of Japan wine unless recommended by a trusted source.

Some of their practices are sketchy to say the least (at least in the wineries that I dealt with).

Jackson, just wondering if you could elaborate on the "sketchy" practices. Or, perhaps, provide names of some Japanese wines/wineries that you could recommend?

thanks!