The Wonderful World of Completely Random Facts — Issue 27
The Backside of a Wine Bottle
The indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle is called a punt. No one really knows for sure why it’s there, but it started when the bottles were made by glassblowers. Sometimes the bottoms became deformed with bumps on the bottom. The bottle couldn’t stand up, so an indentation was created to allow the bottle to stand upright.
Punts also add structural integrity to the base of a bottle that holds a liquid that is under pressure, such as a champagne bottle. But punts don’t appear to have anything to do with the quality of what’s inside, even though they’re still used today in many bottles of wine.
Why is it called a punt, you may ask? Because the glassblower used a tool called a pontil rod, or “punty,” that was attached to the hot glass bottle. When this rod was broken free, it left a pontil scar or bump, as was mentioned previously. Not coincidentally, the punt is also called the “kick-up.” You can see how this could also be a soccer or football reference, right? Source, Source
