The Department for Business and Trade has authorised the sale of pint-sized bottles of wine. But it will not follow through on Boris’s promise to bring back imperial measures in supermarkets and grocery shops. BBC News has more.
Legislation to be tabled in the new year will see the pint-sized bottles sold in supermarkets, pubs, clubs and restaurants.
After Brexit, ministers had looked at changing laws inherited from the EU that mean traders can use Britain’s traditional weighing system only alongside the metric one.
The new legislation will also allow still wine to be sold in 200ml containers, potentially paving the way for an expansion in the canned wine market.
While sparkling wines will be allowed to be sold in 500ml bottles, between a standard full (750ml) and half (375ml) size.Currently, still wine cannot be sold in 200ml quantities and sparkling wine cannot be sold in 500ml amounts.
However, it remains to be seen what the demand will be for pint-sized wine bottles among producers and bottlers.
Pint-sized bottles for champagne were said to be the favourite size of British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, and were on shelves until 1973 when the UK joined the European Common Market.
The government has confirmed it is not planning to change the rules on selling in imperial measures after Brexit.
Ministers looked at changing laws inherited from the EU that mean traders can use Britain’s traditional weighing system only alongside the metric one.EU rules meant traders could display imperial measurements – such as pounds and ounces – only alongside metric, and they could not be more prominent.
They hit the headlines in 2001 following the prosecution of the ‘metric martyrs’, a group of market traders convicted of selling goods using only imperial, although they were not enforced rigorously afterwards.
The rules were initially copied over after Brexit, but Boris Johnson’s government subsequently announced they would be reviewed as part of a plans to “capitalise on the benefits of Brexit”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Peter Hitchens, writing in the Mail, welcomes the new pint-sized wine bottles.
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The unit in my part of Leeds is tinny, as in, “Can you spare anything for a tinny” or “Fetch us some tinnys”.
What’s “wine”, Toby?
I’ll be honest, this hasn’t attracted as many ups as I thought it would
Wrong crowd?
What part of Leeds is that?
Until the age of 9 we lived in Beeston, looking down on Elland Road – I have vivid memories of incomprehensible Celtic fans streaming past the end of our street – but my first pub was in the lower 6th in Ossett just before Christmas 77.
I would have said that this should be quite a long way down a long list of Brexit priorities. As most businesses, especially in Europe are geared for metric packaging, changing the unit size is going to be pretty pointless.
I think this might be Toby’s point…?!
“So… is this what Brexit has come down to?!”
Sadly, it was all so utterly predictable.
I am neither Remainer nor Brexiteer, by the way. The whole thing was completely pointless. Because the useful idiots in Strasbourg, Brussels et al and heck even the useful idiots in our own Houses are not the root of the problem.
Cameron thought all he had to do to get the Eurosceptics on his side was to offer a referendum, he never guessed it would go the way it did, because he is/was just another out of touch Eton Boy.
How very kind of those wonderful work from home civil servants to allow us to buy champers in pint bottles. I dare say this comes with “and that’s your lot” from those same civil servants.
That’s Brexit done.
Yep but whenever in the past did we drink “pints” of wine?
I dunno -according to this article, those whopping great glasses you get in pubs nowadays hold nearly half a litre, which is close to a pint in old money (if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor). I’ve certainly seen nearly half a 75cl bottle go into a glass which is a bit excessive IMHO, but them I’m teetotal!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/14/size-does-matter-wine-glasses-are-seven-times-larger-than-they-used-to-be
Yep but when did you hear anyone go up to a bar and say “eh 2 pints of lager and a pint of merlot please”? ———–I prefer everything to be in the old money as well (if you will pardon the mixed metaphors) but using wine in a pint glass is a bad example.
A gill of Merlot perhaps?
“A gill of Merlot perhaps?”
Somewhat giving away your age and roots.
Up North a “gill” typically referred to a half pint although youngsters these days cannot even understand the tem “gill.” The actual gill measure is five fluid ounces.
Up where I live it used to be “3 pund of tawties and a half loaf, ana packit of cheese an ingin”. —-(3 pounds of potatoes and a loaf of bread and a packet of cheese and onion crisps) ———In those days no one drank wine. Wine was for people on the Italian Riviera
That was my thought – most wine that was around pre EEC days was from France or Germany so basically the size that it is now. This is actually daft!
Wine pre-EEC – mucho, mucho pre, 18th, 19th Century pre – was shipped to Britain from France whence most of the wine came, in 50 gallon barrels…. which corresponded to 400 pints or 225 litres.
It was then bottled by wine merchants in Britain.
However. Things were sold in dozens and half dozens in Britain, and whereas 1 gallon would yield 8 pints, it was realised 1 gallon of wine could produce 6 equal measures, and 2 gallons 12 equal measures, which coincidentally equalled 375ml and 750ml respectively. Why wine is still sold in cases of six and twelve, despite metrication. Each barrel then could produce 25 dozen cases, or 50 half-dozen cases.
I gallon could also produce 8 pint bottles and pint bottles were commonly used in Britain for liquids, so it was possible for some merchants to sell in pints, perhaps to special order.
Ironically, that 19th Century British standard of 750ml became the standard adopted by Europeans which is why wines there are mostly sold based on that measure rather than litre or half-litre commonly used for other liquids.
I believe Churchill drunk champagne served out of pint bottles.
Pitt the Younger was “Advised to drink port every day for medical reasons, Pitt became a “three-bottle-a-day man”, and ended his life as an alcoholic.”
In the 18th century a bottle typically was a one pint measure.
Your answer may be found in history books or even novels.
Can anyone think of a more expensive or wasteful idea? I suspect that a pint bottle will cost more than a 750 (700?) ml bottle of proper wine, and you will have very little choice of cuve(accent). More “hold the masses” down! Rotten wine does come in Tinnies MAK, but few drink this stuff, it is awful!
It’s called ‘choice’. Not everyone’s choice coincides with yours.
As for cost: 500ml bottles already exist. They use less glass, and weighing less cost less to ship.
Yes Net Zero. Organic farming.
FFS! I don’t need a pint bottle of wine. It’s not bloody milk or beer. What is wrong with people??!! How utterly absurd. Should we change everything back to imperial measures just like the good old days when the sun never set on the British Empire? No. It’s effin’ ridiculous.
Well good, now you have established what your ‘needed’ are, how about other people’s needs – or don’t they count?
Why are you so bothered? You’re not a pint bottle wine entrepreneur by any chance are you?
A great opportunity for wine vendors who will price their new pint bottles of wine at around the same level as the old 750ml bottles, trusting that the average shopper won’t spot the difference.
Ever heard of competition?
LOL
Ever heard of ‘shrinkflation’?
“However, it remains to be seen what the demand will be for pint-sized wine bottles among producers and bottlers.”
What?
Isn’t it the demand from consumers that matters?
A pint (500ml near enough) of wine is a good measure. A whole bottle, if you are on your own is too much (although a challenge often met) and a half just not quite enough. So why just for sparkling wines?
I find that if a bottle is too much I can finish it the next day.
Or even the day after that.
“A whole bottle, if you are on your own is too much (although a challenge often met)”
A bottle is too much? I beg to differ. One bottle is simply half time.
What size bottles do US winemakers use for the home market?
All the bottles I remember buying in the SW were 750ml.
Wine from the US arrives here in 750ml bottles. Some of the cheap stuff might come in tankers.