You know that depression in the bottom of a wine bottle? That's called the "punt". Did you know that? I didn't. I had to ask. And it's still never been sufficiently explained to me what it's purpose is. Anyway, one time Julia claimed that she could judge a bottle of wine solely on the depth of its punt. Since she frequently makes things up, I was reluctant to believe this claim at first, but then I thought there might be some merit to it.
I mean, ostensibly it costs more to produce a bottle with a deep punt or even any punt at all, right? Slightly more material involved and I imagine there's an additional step in the production process. So a producer who is only concerned with getting his cheap wine into a glass container in the most inexpensive fashion is going to choose a shallow-punt or punt-less bottle. Or whatever. I'm just hypothesizing here.
Well, the long and short of it is that Julia's theory seems to hold up. Seriously, try it. Over the last year or so, I've tried to take note of the punts on bottles of cheap wine, and it sure seems that the better bottles *do* in fact have a bit of a punt to them, and the bad ones are generally flat as a pancake.
So here's the reader participation part: next time you're drinking a bottle of cheap wine, channel your inner Wine Bottle Proctologist-- don't be shy. Give it a little probe and see what you find. I'd be willing to bet that the deeper the punt, the better the quality of the wine... Report back with your findings...
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