Boozy Britain: Wine glasses double in size since the 90s
WINE glasses in Britain have doubled in size since the 1990s – which scientists believe is making people drink more. Cambridge University researchers assessed glasses dating back hundreds of years, and found they now hold measures more than seven times larger than the meagre tipples enjoyed in the past.
They found the average glass in 1700 contained just 66ml – around the amount in a double shot of spirits. Today, wine glasses hold an average 449ml.
And the biggest glass they found on sale could hold 860ml – enough to take an entire bottle of wine.
The researchers assessed antique glasses in museums, browsed the catalogues of glassware manufac turers and consulted the Royal household records, obtaining the volumes of 411 glasses.
Their findings, published in the British Medical Journal, reveal the biggest increase has been in the past 30 years, with glasses nearly doubling in size from an average of 230ml in 1990.
The scientists, from the Behav iour And health Research Unit in Cambridge, believe this could be driving consumption rates, which increased almost fourfold in Britain between 1960 and 1980, and almost doubled again between 1980 and 2004.
The researchers said people tend to put more wine into bigger glasses. They wrote: ‘A larger glass increases the amount of beverage poured and, in turn, the amount drunk.’
They also suspect a larger glass encourages the brain to drink quicker by fooling it into thinking there is more to get through, even when smaller measures are poured. in an experiment carried out in a bar, when staff served the same amount of wine in larger glasses, wine sales went up by nearly 10 per cent.
Researcher Dr Zorana Zupan said: ‘Since the 1990s, the size has increased rapidly. We have some evidence that suggests that wine glass size influences consumption.’
Malbec is catching prosecco on its way to becoming Britain’s most fashionable tipple, with sales at an alltime high and up 70 per cent on last year. Sparkling wine sales are up 9 per cent this year, with more than 30million gallons drunk so far.