Charlie Parriott’s Magnum Opus: a bid to create the world's biggest wine bottle

Over the last couple of months, American glassmaker Charlie Parriott has been working with Czech scientists and craftsmen to make the biggest wine bottle in the world. The project has taken blood, sweat and more than the odd glass of Muller-Thurgau, but now it is finally drawing to an end. In the final days of the project, I met up with Charlie Parriott to ask why he decided to embark upon this mission in the first place:

“Well, this mission is about making the world’s largest bottle, for the world’s largest bottle of wine, which is intended to break the Guinness world record. So, I’ve been sent here by a vineyard in California – a very good vineyard, by the name of Caymus – and we are working towards the installation of the bottle on a very large object that I can’t tell you the name of, or what it is, at the moment. But it will be also a record-breaking place that it is going to stand.”

So the first question, before we go any further, is why? Why do this, why make the biggest bottle and have the record for making the biggest bottle?

“Well actually, four years ago, I worked with a company by the name of Bohemia Machine and Kavalier Glass Factory and we made the world’s largest bottle of wine in 2004. So, about eight months ago I received a phone call from a vineyard in California, and they were saying ‘well, would you like to break your record again?’ And I said, ‘yes, that sounds like fun, but somebody has already done it’. The bottle that we had made was 133 litres, and then some people from Australia made a bottle that was 290, and then some folks in Austria made one that was 490, so we are coming back and making a bottle which is 570 litres or 159 gallons.”

So, next question, why did they send you here to do it? Of all the places in all the world, why would you come to the Czech Republic to make the world’s largest bottle?

“Well, it’s pretty simple: this is the only place in the world where you can make such a bottle. And the reason being that the company I’m working with, particularly Kavalier and Bohemia Machine, we have kind of a special relationship of engineering and artistry. And we sit around and we combine our thoughts and figure out a way to do these things. But really, the enormous skill level that exists at Kavalier is bar-none the best in the world.

“And also, the kind of glass we’re using is different from the type you see in the shops round Prague. It is called borosilicate glass, which is like technical glass. It is used in laboratories and also places that need special heat-treated or heat-tempered glass, which won’t expand or contract due to heat, or cold. So, a glass fireplace - that would be made out of the same SIMAX, or Pyrex glass.”

There must be quite a lot of actual science and physics behind making this bottle. Presumably there is going to be a great deal of strain on this glass with all of these litres of wine inside. Has it been fairly like a logic puzzle to fit together?

“Well, I am not an engineer, I am an artist. And the bottle has been thoroughly calculated by a technical institute in Liberec, so all the hydrostatic pressure demands of the bottle have been calculated and this company has come back and given us the exact dimensions of the wall thickness of the bottle and how it needs to be handled and what the point-load can be and all the tolerances have been figured out by actual living, breathing engineers.”

And what is the wall thickness like, and how can you handle this bottle? Are there certain things you have to bear in mind?

“Well the wall thickness of the bottle runs anywhere from 9-11mm. But the bottle itself is going to stand… I am holding in my hand the drawing of this bottle, and it is 251cm high, it’s 70cm wide, when it is empty it weighs 120kg, and when it is full of extremely good wine it will weigh 750 kilos. So, once it is in place it will be filled, and to handle it, to carry it, to move it around has to be done with extreme care, because it is dangerous. Once you’ve got glass overhead, you want to be very, very careful. So, you know, two and a half metres high, it’s up there. And everybody that is working with this bottle is a professional, everybody that moves it, everybody that comes near it. So it’s not too nerve-wracking, but it is also very serious.”

Can you talk me through the process of making a bottle like this, because I know that it is actually something that is made in sections? I’ve heard that rather than just making a bottle straight out you have to make little rings and join them all together – is that correct?

“Right, the bottle is blown in seven parts, and then those parts, those rings, as you said, are all joined one to the other exactly lined out on a giant lathe that turns them synchronistically, and then in between where they come together there is a super-hot array of oxygen propane torches that heat up just the very lip of those two cylinders that kisses them together and welds them. And it is actually stronger there than anywhere else in the bottle. But this welding process is what we are doing right now, as we are speaking.

“To look at it on paper is one thing, but to look at it in real life and see this thing come together it is, well… Have you ever read the book Frankenstein? There is a point where this mad guy, this guy who has locked himself in his studio or in his laboratory for a year and a half, and he has got this secret thing that he is making and then all of a sudden, at one point, the creature, the monster, opens its eyes and looks at Frankenstein. And this guy goes completely berserk, and he loses consciousness, he loses all consciousness for three and a half months until his friend comes and wakes him from this delirium. And in a way I’m starting to feel a little bit like Frankenstein in that now I’m seeing this thing come together. I was in the factory today, and it is intimidating, sort of like Frankenstein’s monster.”