Inflation of wine glasses

We’re not just drinking more wine, we’re drinking it from ever bigger glasses.

A team from the University of Cambridge analysed 411 wine glasses and found the ones we use today are, on average, seven times larger than those that were used during the Georgian era.

They’ve grown from 66ml in the early 1700s to 499ml today.

Various factors explain the increase, including the end of a tax on glassware in 1845, the rise of automated glass production in the late Victorian era, and a growing fashion in the late 20th century for very large glasses that would allow wine to “breathe” better.