
Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger - pepys
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wine-glasses-growth-history
======
justaaron
Why has no one mentioned that "wine" to a Brit in 1700 meant FORTIFIED wine
like Port wine or Sherry (aka 18-20% alcohol instead of 11-15%)? The
fortification of Port wine is legendarily attributed to both British tastes
for sweet or "stalled mid fermentation by addition of spirits" wine, and the
voyage by sea, in which normal wines suffered excessively from spoilage etc.

~~~
lqet
This is what I thought. I regularly enjoy a "modern" glass of wine, but for
port wine, even a full shot glass is too much for me. It's just so heavy and
sweet. The glasses depicted in the article seem to hold exactly the amount of
port I would be able to comfortably drink in 10-20 minutes.

~~~
wahern
Have you tried a Sercial or Verdelho Madeira? Almost all Madeira sold is
Malmsey, which is the sweetest. You'll sometimes find bottles of the Boal
style, the next sweetest, sold as a digestif if the restaurant is a little
more discerning.

But the best styles, IMO, are Sercial and Verdelho. Sercial is dry and
Verdelho medium-dry[1], IMO have more fascinating flavors, and tend to be more
acidic than the sweeter styles, which as a soda drinker I especially like.
Both are really good for extended sessions as they're not nearly as cloying as
Port. And the Sercial in particular suitable for drinking by the glassful with
dinner if you care to splurge.

And one of the greatest things about Madeira is that it's already completely
oxidized. Opinions very, but as for myself I still enjoy bottles of Madeira
that I opened years ago. By contrast, IME an opened bottle of Tawny Port
starts to lose its punch after a week or so (on the outside). This is why you
can still buy Madeira from the 1800s and even 1700s and still enjoy it today.
The oldest enjoyable Ports (Ruby or Tawny) tend to only go back 50 or 100
years if they've been preserved well.

If you're not a regular drinker (like me) or are the sole drinker in a
household (like me), and don't enjoy hard liquor (like me), then the long
shelf-life of opened bottles is really nice.

The Historic Series Madeiras from the Rare Wine Co are good exemplars of the
various styles

    
    
      https://www.rarewineco.com/rare-wine-co-historic-series-madeira
    

I don't know if they still do, but they used to offer a 4 half bottle sample
gift set.

[1] Though both still sweeter and thicker (mouth feel) than a Sherry, with
less of the distilled spirits-like flavor/smell coming through--which is why I
dislike Sherry.

~~~
fredsted
I love that on HN someone always is an expert in the topic at hand and can
provide some interesting knowledge. Thanks!

------
esmi
[http://www.delish.com/food/news/a39120/super-sized-
beverages...](http://www.delish.com/food/news/a39120/super-sized-beverages/)

"For 25 years, a 26-ounce drink was the biggest soda a person could buy. Then
in 1980, a shift occurred when 7-Eleven began its Big Gulp campaign. Big Gulp
fountain drink cup sizes steadily rose throughout the decade and beyond,
beginning at 32 ounces in 1980, then climbing to 44 ounces in 1986, 64 ounces
in 1989, and a behemoth 128 ounces in 2006. Called the Team Gulp, the
128-ounce cup holds a gallon of soda."

Wine is lagging behind. More wine please... :)

~~~
Symbiote
For those outside the US, like me:

26oz ≈ 769mL

32oz ≈ 946mL

44oz ≈ 1301mL

64oz ≈ 1893mL

128oz ≈ 3785mL

In America, are these labelled as multiple servings? Even a 500mL bottle of
cola in Europe is labelled as two 250mL servings.

~~~
makesthingspos
These cups are not usually labeled with serving information. They don't, for
example, have how many calories are in them because they can be filled with a
variety of different sodas (some zero calorie).

FWIW, from my perception, the 128 oz is very rare, 64 oz is fairly common but
a small percent of sales, and 44 oz is very common. (edit: these are for
convenience stores like 7-11, not restaurants etc where sizes are much
smaller)

~~~
test1235
wow ... do we have 1+ litre servings here in UK? Maybe at the cinema or
something?

Most common serving size here might be a pint, which is about half a litre, I
guess.

~~~
dagw
One factor that I've noticed is that Americans love ice much more than
Europeans. It's not uncommon for them to fill a cup with ice almost to the rim
and then add the soda. It would be interesting to see how much actual soda
most people put in those 1+ litre ups.

~~~
madcaptenor
I've seen calorie counts posted on soda fountains. If I recall correctly the
fine print says that they figure one-third ice.

------
excitom
Back in the day a Royal Navy sailor's daily ration of beer was a gallon, or a
half pint of 115 proof rum. I don't think the dainty wineglasses are a good
indication of volume consumed.

~~~
oh_sigh
The beer doesn't even count, as it was fortified with lime and was essentially
water. The half pint(can we just say 'cup' now?) of rum is equal to about 5
shots worth. Not really enough to get any sailor shitfaced, but enough to take
the edge off of a long shift of physical labor in a very harsh, unforgiving
environment.

~~~
wiredfool
A pint is 20oz in the UK, and 16oz in the US. So a Half Pint is a 10oz glass
(close to the normal 12oz 'Pint Glass' you get in American bars, or the
standard beer bottle), and a full pint is nearly double the usual American
beer serving.

Cups aren't used.

Randomly, there's a line in 1984 where a guy in a bar is lamenting the switch
from Pints to Half or Full Liters, and it never made sense to me because the
difference between an American pint and a half liter is ~5%, in the noise. But
to the original audience, it's more like 18%.

~~~
madcaptenor
Also, a half liter is _larger_ than an American pint (473 mL) but _smaller_
than a UK pint (568 mL - UK fluid ounces are smaller than US fluid ounces).
And I would imagine that prices wouldn't go down when they switched from
imperial pints to half-liters.

------
t0mas88
Flying a lot around Europe I'm always surprised by how full the British side
of things fills a wineglass :-) 125 ml is normal in the majority of places,
180 ml is a British glass of wine. The article is from the UK...

But both 125 and 180 ml servings are considerably less than the size of the
glass, so the article title is at best clickbaity. The glass got bigger but
nobody is pouring 7x as much wine per serving as before.

~~~
realusername
And also in the UK, they generally pour your wine glass up to the top (no idea
why) whereas in France it's always served with about a 1/4 of the glass.

~~~
Symbiote
That depends on the quality of the place.

An average pub might choose these glasses with the legal markings at 125, 175
and 250mL, which probably makes the 250mL serving seem quite full.

A nicer place will have larger glasses, or serve the smaller amount.

[http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?ID=21754&catI...](http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?ID=21754&catID=1436&name=Saxon+Tri+Lined+Wine+Glasses+12oz+LCE+at+125%2C+175+%26amp%3B+250ml)

~~~
realusername
I've mostly been to cheaper places so that would explain it!

------
emrekzd
Not sure about wine glasses but universities have at least 7 times more
incentive to publish BS papers these days.

>> "These days, the average British pour of wine is 250 milliliters".

According to data collected from dive bars. And I'm serious, see the article
they referenced in the paper:
[https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2014/10/24/Direc...](https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2014/10/24/Direct-
Line-wine-glass-pub-measures-research)

Modern wine glasses are designed for drinking experience and you are supposed
to hold the glass using your fingers from it's stem. And that's exactly why
you don't fill half of your glass and try to carry 250 milliliters of liquid
with your fingers.

~~~
jdietrich
> According to data collected from dive bars.

How do you know? A British pub can be anything from a squalid shabeen to a
comfortable community space to a restaurant that happens to sell beer.

In the UK, wine by the glass can only be legally served in measures of 125ml,
175ml or multiples thereof. The vast majority of pubs today only sell 175ml
and 250ml measures.

A few decades ago, asking for "a glass of red wine" would have got you a 125ml
glass unless you specifically asked for a large glass, which would be 175ml.
Gradually, the default moved to 175ml and the 125ml "small" glass was phased
out in favour of the 250ml "large" glass, with 175ml becoming the new "small".

It's abundantly clear that there's been a vast increase in the quantities of
wine drunk over the past few decades. Wine consumption has contributed to the
legitimisation of heavy drinking amongst the middle-aged and middle-class.
Drinking several large glasses of wine doesn't carry the same stigma as
drinking several pints of strong beer. As a result, we've seen a quadrupling
of chronic liver disease, with the increase mainly being seen in middle-aged,
middle-class and disproportionately female drinkers.

[https://www.gov.uk/weights-measures-and-packaging-the-
law/sp...](https://www.gov.uk/weights-measures-and-packaging-the-
law/specified-quantities)
[https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2008/06/27/Major...](https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2008/06/27/Major-
pub-operators-shun-125ml-wine-glasses)

~~~
hmmon321
Around 40% of deaths from liver disease are attributable to alcohol
consumption, so I'm not sure how an increase in wine drinking within one age
group could be the main cause of a 400% increase in liver disease.

------
mattzito
> These days, the average British pour of wine is 250 milliliters, “larger
> than the mean capacity of wine glasses available in the 1980s,” writes
> Marteau.

Wow that’s a big pour - you expect to get 4-5 glasses of wine out of a
standard 750ml bottle, potentially a little more than that if you’re ordering
by the glass in a restaurant.

~~~
abalone
The article misquotes its source. The study states "wine is _increasingly_
served in 250 mL servings" (emphasis mine), not that the average pour size has
become 250ml!

250ml is a typical carafe size. Carafes are a more common way to serve wine in
Europe, compared to ordering two separate glasses.

~~~
r00fus
Carafes are usually house wine though. Hard to get carafe sizing for a higher
end wine.

~~~
abalone
Even if true, this does not support the claim that Britains consume
significantly more wine than in 1700. (Which may be true but it’s not
supported.) If anything it would suggest that higher end wine is sold by the
glass or bottle... again the source does not claim otherwise.

------
jaclaz
As a side note, at least here in Italy, serving a glass of wine at a
restaurant is a relatively recent use (say in the last 15-20 years) new thing
(most probably "imported" from other countries).

Until then you either ordered a bottle (around 75 cl) or some "house" wine,
served in (measured) of either 25 cl (a quarter, "un quartino") 50 cl (a half
liter, "un mezzo") or 100 cl (a liter, "un litro"), that looked like these:

[http://bar-barman.com/1183-thickbox_default/caraffe-misura-b...](http://bar-
barman.com/1183-thickbox_default/caraffe-misura-bollo-con-
scritta-025l-05l-1lt.jpg)

Or, in many places, wine was "a consumo" (upon consumption?) where the waiter
would bring on the table a full "fiasco" (large bottle of wine, usually 1.75
l) and then estimate how much of it you emptied when it came to calculate the
bill.

In any case normally each person would drink no more than "un quartino", no
matter the size of the glass.

------
jasonkester
To me, this indicates that the _pattern_ of wine drinking has changed over the
years, not the quantity.

"A glass of wine with you, sir" was a friendly thing to say at the table, and
resulted in both parties filling and downing an entire glass. The small
glasses seem to be a way of carrying that on over the course of a large meal
with a dozen people without any of them actually dying.

Accounts of those meals also talk of going through around 2 bottles of wine
per participant. In the article photo, the bottle looks about the same as it
does today.

------
abalone
Since 1700, wine has gotten 7 times _better_.[1]

[1] [http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/06/wine-history-paul-
luka...](http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/06/wine-history-paul-lukacs-
inventing-wine-how-wine-was-modernized-ancient-wine-tasted-terrible.html)

------
jdonaldson
I'll start off echoing what others have been saying... ports and madeiras were
more popular. They resisted spoiling due to the high alcohol/sugar content.
They can kick like a mule, so you can't just down 250ML in a sitting.

Wine glasses are also fragile. A lot of places serve wine in common water
glasses of roughly the same size. Italians have been doing that forever.

Bigger glasses are more fragile, but they greatly enhance aeration and aroma.
The smell of wine is over 50% of the experience for me. If i'm trying to
maximize the experience of a good bottle, I'll use ridiculously large Riedel
Vinum Old World glasses : [https://www.amazon.com/Riedel-Veritas-World-Pinot-
Glass/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Riedel-Veritas-World-Pinot-
Glass/dp/B00KJWW4P8) They're enormous, fragile, a pain in the behind to wash.
However It's tough to go back to standard wine glasses after you try one.

All in all, I would say glasses are getting bigger in some cases, but the
article is totally missing the how and why of it.

~~~
wahern
FWIW, Sercial (dry) and Verdelho (medium-dry) Madeiras, sporting less sugar
and nice acidity, can be quite quaffable. The acidity also helps, I think, to
mask the stronger alcohol content. Those styles are really hard to find,
though, as both cheap and expense Madeiras tend to be of the Malmsey style and
only slightly less cloying than Port. The second most common style is Boal,
which is less sweeter than Malmsey but lacks the acidity.

~~~
jdonaldson
Thanks, I gotta bone up on my madeiras.

------
matt4077
This references the study showing that people eat more when using larger
plates, but I think wine drinking is the one instances where those results
aren't easily transferrable.

Wine glasses today are usually filled to about 1/4, where (judging by the
painting in the article, and my guess) glasses 1/7th the size of today's were
filled to the rim.

~~~
jgibson
I wonder how much of the liquid/volume ratio is just due to people trying to
protect their white carpet...

~~~
fosco
some anecdata - I spilled an oversized glass of red wine our carpet ina
previous house and escalated my wife's 'need' for wooden floors by unknown to
immediate. :-)

on a side note we were much happier with the wooden floor

~~~
lostlogin
I hope your dog need reduced in parallel. Skating dogs are surprisingly
destructive.

------
arihant
This is quiet meaningless, almost an Onion article. Nobody serves a 449ml wine
pour. Just because the glasses have gone larger, does not mean the serving
size has too. The photo that says it was probably 14 servings back in the day,
the glass is not even filled to a third of its capacity.

------
erpellan
Wine was probably vastly more expensive as a proportion of income in the 1700s
compared to today. Makes sense that glasses would be that much smaller.

~~~
gozur88
I believe that. I'll bet mead, beer, and rum were more affordable.

------
maxxxxx
Everything is getting much bigger. The candy in my youth was really small
compared to today's bars. With ice cream it's even worse.

~~~
snug
That may be true from your youth, but things are getting smaller from a decade
ago, candy[0], chips, fountain drinks, etc.

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/24/sweets-
are-...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/24/sweets-are-
shrinking-youre-not-imagining-it-ons-tells-shoppers)

~~~
maxxxxx
This is an interesting dynamic. First they made things much bigger and now
they are trying to deliver less at the same price. It would be interesting to
see how decisions for pricing and size are made.

~~~
jdietrich
Eventually the elastic snaps on product downsizing and they relaunch a new
"king size" or "sharing" product.

For example, the Mars Bar in the UK grew from 49g to 65g then shrank back down
to 51g, but they also launched an 84g king size bar. After complaints from the
regulators, the king size bar was replaced by "Mars Duo" \- two 42g bars in
the same pack, ostensibly designed for sharing.

Cheaper ingredients can also be substituted by redesigning the product. The
chocolate on a Mars bar is thinner than it used to be and the nougat has an
airier texture, maintaining product size while reducing ingredient cost. Many
chocolate manufacturers have increased the number of SKUs with inclusions like
cookie or honeycomb pieces. Sugar, flour and air are cheaper than cocoa, but
it feels like you're getting more for your money than if you'd bought a plain
chocolate bar.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Confectioners have become exceptionally good at aeration it seems. 8 years or
more ago the UK high street confectioner Thorntons served lovely chocolates,
now they're all aerated foam with a thin shell of chocolate flavoured wax,
they honestly turn my stomach whilst once-upon-a-time I'd happily eat a whole
box. Of course one's own taste for sweets changes but I think they're more to
blame.

Once Kraft took over Cadbury we got recipe changes - palm oil - to the
standard chocolate; and lots of new bars with inclusions, as you mention, in
order to reduce the amount of chocolate but keep the bulk.

Nearly all ice-cream now in UK supermarkets seems to boast "soft scoop" which
is just the aeration AFAICT, meaning you get "half" the volume of actual
ingredients (except air) in the same tub.

This sort of cheating with foods seems to have accelerated since the
recession.

------
djrogers
I have heard that such small glasses were a) somewhat necessary due to the
difficulty of glassmaking in the 1700s, and b) not a problem when you have
servants following you around keeping your glasses topped up.

~~~
easy_lucky_free
I mean, the average person didn't exactly have servants.

Glass-making concept makes sense to me though.

~~~
maxk42
Perhaps the average person in the 1700s with a specific glass for wine did?

------
blahedo
Huh. This explains something I've been wondering about for a while: I thought
I had remembered figuring that a bottle of wine (standard 750 mL) was good for
about six glasses. But at a recent event I helped host, the wine caterers said
to count on about four pours per bottle. I assumed I had just misremembered,
but "six per bottle" seems in line with what others in the thread are
suggesting was more typical a couple decades ago, and it's just more
confirmation that standard serving size has gone up....

------
Blazespinnaker
Didn’t they drink out of wine skins? Cheaper, more sturdy than glass.. and
beer was drunk from wooden tankards, 4 pints in size unearthed, probably 2000
years ago in wales.

[https://museum.wales/articles/2010-04-01/Ancient-Drinking-
Cu...](https://museum.wales/articles/2010-04-01/Ancient-Drinking-Culture-The-
Langstone-Tankard/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>When full, the tankard would have held nearly four pints of beer or cider. It
was held in two hands and was probably passed around a group as a communal
drinking vessel. //

Like a wassail cup or so.

------
DrScump
The paper:

[http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5623](http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5623)

------
drewmol
I was thinking the same as many other commenters:

Wonder how this compares to the increased size of tablewear or portion sizes
in general. In the age of 64oz soda's and XL meal size options, seems wine
glasses would increase at a similar rate.

------
matte_black
Are historically accurate classic size wine glasses sold today? They look
classy.

~~~
Tade0
They look a lot like modern cordial glasses.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
That's because they are. The article is wrong.

------
yCloser
In Italy each region has its own, sacred, defined volume for a glass of wine
(from 80 to 100 ml).

The correct one ofc is 100ml.

Who would pour 450ml of wine in a single glass?! (and > 250ml before dinner
will likely get you tipsy)

------
JauntyHatAngle
Isn't wine also meant to be in a bigger glass so the vapour collects in the
glass better for smelling?

------
microcolonel
> _For regulators keeping a worried eye on increased drinking, Marteau
> suggests encouraging the use of smaller glasses. After all, water is a bit
> safer to drink these days._

Can you please stay out of it? Just because port glasses from the 1700s have
less overall volume than tasting glasses from the 2010s, doesn't mean it's
anyone's job to say how big they should be. At most, the volume of the _pour_
has increased by maybe a factor of four, while (compared to the wine that went
in the 60ml glasses) the alcohol content has decreased in a single step, from
fortified to straight.

------
wott
It is always funny to see Americans using huge (as in HUGE) glasses to drink
wine, believing that it is the French distinguished way of tasting wine, and
being disappointed when they discover that French people just use
regular/smallish glasses in any context.

No, it is just Americans confusing 'big' for 'refined' as usual :-) (and
bigger for more refined, and even bigger for super classy).

~~~
throwaway5752
Most people in the US go to a specialty retailer if they need wine glasses,
and a nice one has Riedel or something comparable. The sales associate will
invariably say "oh this is made to enjoy red Bordeauxs, this one is for white
Burgundies, etc, etc" and they will be nudged to go fancy. I don't know if
they go in with the expressed plan to buy an enormous wine glass set, but just
look at
[https://www.riedel.com/restaurant/collection/d/sommeliers/bo...](https://www.riedel.com/restaurant/collection/d/sommeliers/bordeaux-
grand-cru-1/), it's 30 oz. I think it's fair to say there is an element of
industry pushing consumer demand in a more expensive direction. Also, I think
it's fair to point out Riedel is European and has been around for 250 years.

Also, even if I was presented with that wine glass, I would expect nothing
more than a standard pour. I don't think you're being entirely fair to
Americans in this particular case (even if a number of them would be happy
with a pint of wine).

~~~
dragonwriter
> Most people in the US go to a specialty retailer if they need wine glasses

[citation needed]

If I were going to bet, I'd say most _purchasers_ of wine glasses probably do
it through general retailers like Target or Amazon, not specialty retailers.

I would be less surprised if the greatest number of consumer purchases of
wineglasses were from specialty retailers because the people who buy from them
but more glasses per person, but I really doubt most _people_ use a specialty
retailer.

~~~
throwaway5752
You got me. I have no idea, and I'm not invested enough to find out. I'd
assumed Williams-Sonoma or something comparable. Let the record show that
Target sells Riedel, too.

