Of the nearly 150 hock-style wine bottles recovered from the SS Republic, all are in in varying shades of light and dark amber. The bottle's particular shape was - and still is - referred to as a "hock" or Rhine wine. During the 19th century, hock wine bottles typically contained both red and white Rhine and Mosel wines. The term "hock" is reported to be an English pronunciation of the abbreviation for Hockheim, named for a German vineyard village from where the first Main-Rhine wines were exported to England.

The distinctive shape of this bottle, typically tall and slender, dates back to at least the 1820s or 1830s in Europe. Hock wine bottles from the 19th and early 20th centuries are most often seen in shades of olive green or amber such as this example, but were produced commonly in a wide array of other colors including aqua, red amber and various shades of blue and bluish green, as well as colorless glass. Today this precise shape is synonymous with white wines made throughout the world from an assortment of grapes including Riesling (usually green bottles) and Gewurztraminer (usually amber bottles).