Wine glasses increase from 66 ml in 1700 to ~450 ml today...

Apparently wine drinkers thought of supersizing before hamburger joints, interesting read in The Economist:

"In all, the average capacity of a wine glass increased from 66ml in the 1700s to almost 450ml in 2016-17"

https://www.economist.com/news/science- ... itish-wine?

[David M. Bueker]

While wine bottles have not changed all that much in size of the time period.

Bartholomew Broadbent posted a story to his Facebook page, about his father Michael’s drinking habits. While the elder Broadbent was having wine at multiple points every day, it was rarely more than a few ounces (2-4) at a time.

This story was in all the newspapers. But it's not the size of the glass, it's how often it is refilled.

My recollection is that very little glasses of the early days came from a time when it was the fashion to call for multiple toasts and everyone had to empty their glasses with each toast.

Also, its not how big the glass is but how much of it filled with wine. Wine lovers nowadays like bigger glasses so they can enjoy the bouquet, so wine should not fill more than a third of the glass.

As David says, the size of bottles have not changed ....

It's a non-story

I'm quite prepared to believe that consumption increases with glass size, but certainly not in proportion to glass size. It used to be a truism that people ate more if they had larger plates, but that has more recently been shown to depend on how easy it is to add food to the plate. So it works for buffets where there is a queue for example, but not if people help themselves from food put on the table where they are sitting.

The total number of wine glasses at any time is probably a much better predictor of wine consumption than the glass size.

I see from the graph in the economist that of the 411 glasses used in the study, quite a few from 2016-2017 were 800ml or more. It seems that the glasses were neither selected randomly, nor reflect the proportions of glasses actually in use.

[David M. Bueker]

There are many glasses out there that are meant to be impressive rather than functional. Including them in the study renders it meaningless.

Must remember that if I am asked by a doctor how much wine I drink, I hope to have been using the large glasses I have that holds about a liter each.

"I hold myself to one glass a day, Doctor...."