Bocksbeutel

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

Bocksbeutel, special bottle in the shape of a flattened flask used in the German wine region of franken and four communes in the northern Ortenau area of baden. The name probably derived from the Low German Bockesbeutel, a pouch to carry prayer-books and the like, rather than from any ostensible resemblance to a goat’s scrotum (the literal translation). From the early 18th century onwards, the orginal purpose of the special bottle was to guarantee the authenticity of Würzburger Steinwein. Only after the First World War did it become common throughout Franken.