Wine glasses grow seven times larger over 300 years
Wine glasses just keep getting bigger.
While most Londoners will be familiar with the experience of paying an arm and a leg for a measly 125ml, it turns out glassware, and the measures we drink from them, are much larger now than in the past.
That’s according to a study by researchers at the University of Cambridge, who found that wine glasses are seven times larger now than they were 300 years ago.
The average glass in the Georgian era held a maximum of only 66ml. In 2016-2017, this has increased to 449ml.
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The sharpest rise was noted in the last two decades, alongside an increase in overall consumption of wine.
Wine consumption increased fourfold between 1960 and 1980, and doubled between 1980 and 2004. This was partly attributed to affordable wines becoming available, but some research has also suggested that wine glass size could encourage consumers to drink more.
Professor Theresa Marteau, who led the research, previously carried out an experiment in which she increased the size of wine glasses at a Cambridge bar, which increased sales by 10 per cent.
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