I was told using wine bottles for beer is a no-no. They can explode due to pressure and that maybe champagne bottles may work. Any experience, thoughts?

1 wine bottle =1 1/2 pints, mmmmm

Its fine to do, my friend does it all the time. You need special larger caps to go on the top though, or I supose if they allready have a screw top that would be fine.

However, I know that some wine makers (in Aus) are now useing a new type of bottle that uses less glass (its thinner) and I couldn't say whether those are robust enough as I haven't encountered one yet.