The Lemon Fool

I think Churchill regarded the pint as the ideal quantity of wine to drink, I tend to agree with him.

MM

MaraMan wrote:I think Churchill regarded the pint as the ideal quantity of wine to drink, I tend to agree with him.

And that was just the champagne. A pint at lunchtime, every day. And the same again at dinner. Not forgetting the whisky and sodas without which he couldn't really get started in the morning. Or sleep at night.

And that was from an author who insisted that Churchill didn't abuse alcohol! Hmmmmm.

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/ ... l-alcohol/

BJ

swill453 wrote:As Daniel Lambert, wine importer, says:

cut to the chase, it’s absolute boll*cks. Why people can’t use their brain is beyond me.

https://twitter.com/DanielLambert29/sta ... 0102872132

Scott.

I think he's wrong.

Consider how much of our wine comes in from Australia, South Africa, etc, in bulk containers (I've also heard it is sometimes shipped as a concentrate) and is bottled in huge plants in Bristol, Irlam, etc. Just look on the back of a bottle of a Big Brand and you'll see a postcode that refers to the bottling plant eg 19 Crimes

Bottled for:
Treasury Wine Estates EMEA Ltd,
Regal House,
70 London Road,
Twickenham,
Middlesex,
TW1 3QS,
UK.

By: W1226, UK.
At: M44 6BD, UK.

In this age of moderation, this law change opens up endless posibilites for repackaging, you already get some budget stuff in tetrapak style containers, but I can easily see Hardys or Banrock station coming in "Eco" packaging marketed as less waste (whilst ignoring the fact that most of the country has to take it several miles to the local recycling centre as their nearest collection point). Lighter weight, more efficient use of packing cases, and probably cheaper.

And don't forget the ease of obfuscating the price

DrFfybes wrote:I think he's wrong.

Consider how much of our wine comes in from Australia, South Africa, etc, in bulk containers (I've also heard it is sometimes shipped as a concentrate) and is bottled in huge plants in Bristol, Irlam, etc. Just look on the back of a bottle of a Big Brand and you'll see a postcode that refers to the bottling plant eg 19 Crimes

Bottled for:
Treasury Wine Estates EMEA Ltd,
Regal House,
70 London Road,
Twickenham,
Middlesex,
TW1 3QS,
UK.

By: W1226, UK.
At: M44 6BD, UK.

In this age of moderation, this law change opens up endless posibilites for repackaging, you already get some budget stuff in tetrapak style containers, but I can easily see Hardys or Banrock station coming in "Eco" packaging marketed as less waste (whilst ignoring the fact that most of the country has to take it several miles to the local recycling centre as their nearest collection point). Lighter weight, more efficient use of packing cases, and probably cheaper.

And don't forget the ease of obfuscating the price

But it's already legal to have a variety of bottle sizes, including half bottle and 500ml, but how many of us demand them in preference to 750ml?

Simply no point in adding a further, theoretical, 568ml option.

Scott.

DrFfybes wrote:And don't forget the ease of obfuscating the price

Well this is it, exactly.

Were I a wine importer, I'd definitely sell wine in pint bottles, for 5% less than the same wine in 750ml bottles.

I don't think it will fly actually. Two or three years ago, passable wine started being sold in 750ml plastic bottles. No-one bought it as the bottles looked suspiciously smaller, even though they weren't.

Mike4 wrote:Were I a wine importer, I'd definitely sell wine in pint bottles, for 5% less than the same wine in 750ml bottles.

You wouldn't, because there aren't enough Farages to make it worth your while.

Scott.

bungeejumper wrote:

MaraMan wrote:I think Churchill regarded the pint as the ideal quantity of wine to drink, I tend to agree with him.

And that was just the champagne. A pint at lunchtime, every day. And the same again at dinner. Not forgetting the whisky and sodas without which he couldn't really get started in the morning. Or sleep at night.

And that was from an author who insisted that Churchill didn't abuse alcohol! Hmmmmm.

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/ ... l-alcohol/

Is it abuse if you function at a very high level and live to age 91?

Some people can drink vast amounts and yet not get into trouble, ruin their health or die young.

swill453 wrote:Simply no point in adding a further, theoretical, 568ml option.

But no point in disallowing it either, just in case there is a demand.

Lootman wrote:

swill453 wrote:Simply no point in adding a further, theoretical, 568ml option.

But no point in disallowing it either, just in case there is a demand.

A third of a pint?

XFool wrote:

Lootman wrote:But no point in disallowing it either, just in case there is a demand.

A third of a pint?

A third of a pint is close to the 175 ml that is served as a medium glass of wine in pubs and restaurants. Probably too small to justify a bottle.

Half a pint is more likely - just a tad more than a "large" (250 ml) standard glass of wine. And we already use glasses that are that size.

Mike4 wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:And don't forget the ease of obfuscating the price

Well this is it, exactly. Were I a wine importer, I'd definitely sell wine in pint bottles, for 5% less than the same wine in 750ml bottles.

A unit price could be displayed, which I regularly see on other types of product.

Lootman wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Well this is it, exactly. Were I a wine importer, I'd definitely sell wine in pint bottles, for 5% less than the same wine in 750ml bottles.

A unit price could be displayed, which I regularly see on other types of product.

Well that would be rather misleading as the bottle can be a significant proportion of the cost. A one pint wine bottle will probably cost much the same as a 750ml bottle.

Nobody has mentioned "Single Serving" bottles of wine and cocktails. I'm not sure what volume they contain, but my guess is about 150 ml in most cases.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:Nobody has mentioned "Single Serving" bottles of wine and cocktails. I'm not sure what volume they contain, but my guess is about 150 ml in most cases.

187 ml seems to be the popular size. A quarter of a standard 750 ml bottle, and usually somewhere vaguely close to the 2 alcohol units a day that the nanny state thinks we should treat as a maximum.

BJ

Lootman wrote:

XFool wrote:A third of a pint?

A third of a pint is close to the 175 ml that is served as a medium glass of wine in pubs and restaurants. Probably too small to justify a bottle.

Pardon me for being unable to resist surreptitiously bringing "a little bit of politics" onto a TLF thread.

Mea culpa.


(Let's hope a moderator doesn't snatch it away...)

Lootman wrote:But why not? It would provide another choice of size for buying bottles of wine. And many older people like me still "think" in pints (and pounds) rather than metric.

And wine by the glass could then be sold in half pint sizes as well, that being a little more than the current largest glass - 250 ml.

I doubt you have ever thought of buying a pint of wine in a glass. That sounds pretty obscene to me, and owuld take some getting used to. I think 250mm is quite gross to start with, and I believe this was just a con to get us to drink more in restaurants.

When I visit my French relatives they drink little and often, but their domestic glasses in the cupboard are 100ml.

One pet hate is serving wine it super giant glasses - again it's deliberate, so one feels the amount of wine you've bought is pathetically small and need to buy more so as not to feel stupid. If I order 125mm, I expect a glass appropriate to that size.

Arb.

XFool wrote:

Lootman wrote:A third of a pint is close to the 175 ml that is served as a medium glass of wine in pubs and restaurants. Probably too small to justify a bottle.

Pardon me for being unable to resist surreptitiously bringing "a little bit of politics" onto a TLF thread.

Mea culpa.


(Let's hope a moderator doesn't snatch it away...)

Interesting side note: my local pub serves beer as pints or one-third pints (not halves).

Arb.

DrFfybes wrote:

swill453 wrote:As Daniel Lambert, wine importer, says:



https://twitter.com/DanielLambert29/sta ... 0102872132

Scott.

I think he's wrong.

Consider how much of our wine comes in from Australia, South Africa, etc, in bulk containers (I've also heard it is sometimes shipped as a concentrate) and is bottled in huge plants in Bristol, Irlam, etc. Just look on the back of a bottle of a Big Brand and you'll see a postcode that refers to the bottling plant eg 19 Crimes

Bottled for:
Treasury Wine Estates EMEA Ltd,
Regal House,
70 London Road,
Twickenham,
Middlesex,
TW1 3QS,
UK.

By: W1226, UK.
At: M44 6BD, UK.

In this age of moderation, this law change opens up endless posibilites for repackaging, you already get some budget stuff in tetrapak style containers, but I can easily see Hardys or Banrock station coming in "Eco" packaging marketed as less waste (whilst ignoring the fact that most of the country has to take it several miles to the local recycling centre as their nearest collection point). Lighter weight, more efficient use of packing cases, and probably cheaper.

And don't forget the ease of obfuscating the price

Are you really drinking those wines though?
It was about 14 years back a friends family vineyard switched to screwtop bottles at their plant in Victoria because Tesco and Sainsburys were pushing to reduce the risk of wastage. Those are a commodity drop at only about 17quid a bottle.
I can imagine there's places putting goon in the boxes after a trip in a giant vat ... but I'm not sure that's worth drinking

Arborbridge wrote:

XFool wrote:Pardon me for being unable to resist surreptitiously bringing "a little bit of politics" onto a TLF thread.

Mea culpa.


(Let's hope a moderator doesn't snatch it away...)

Interesting side note: my local pub serves beer as pints or one-third pints (not halves).

Arb.

Barley wine and old ale was often sold as nips, about a third of a pint. Usually in bottle, but some were available on draught. Morrell's College Ale in Oxford could be bought on draught at a pub in the Corn market.4/4d a pint as I recall. Worthington E and Bass were about 1/6d a pint, while draught Guinness was about 2/6d a pint in the 1950s.

TJH

servodude wrote:Are you really drinking those wines though?

Yes. And I suspect you do as well. It's nothing new, fortified wines have been UK bottled for centuries.

It's not just the cheap stuff either, plenty of wines over £10 come in this way. Over 600 million bottles were filled in the UK last year.

19 Crimes (and that has a cork in), and looking at the wine rack Lindemans, The Wanderer. Rosemount, Jam Shed(don't ask), Kumala, possibly Wolf Blass, and a few of the supermarket 'better than' ranges. A lot of the Accolade and Constellation brands are bulk shipped, even The Wine Society UK bottles a range of wines, including First Growth Claret.

According to https://www.winealchemy.co.uk/bulk-wine ... optimally/ over half the wine from the USA is bulk shipped, and a lot of New World wine, quite a bit of Spanish, and a fair amount of "boutique" wines.

Looking around, over half of Aus, South Africa, and US wines are bulk, and much of the Latin Americas too.

And some of them are quite drinkable

Paul

Lootman wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Do you really expect your fave wine to be available in both 750ml bottles AND pint bottles?!

You can currently buy wine in 500 ml sizes and a pint is not so far off that. So the demand is presumably there for that kind of size. Not everyone wants to drink an entire 750 ml bottle.

Very few- our dessert wine for Christmas Day, yes (though we never actually drank it on the day), very little else in 500ml.

Arborbridge wrote:

Lootman wrote:But why not? It would provide another choice of size for buying bottles of wine. And many older people like me still "think" in pints (and pounds) rather than metric.

And wine by the glass could then be sold in half pint sizes as well, that being a little more than the current largest glass - 250 ml.

I doubt you have ever thought of buying a pint of wine in a glass. That sounds pretty obscene to me, and owuld take some getting used to. I think 250mm is quite gross to start with, and I believe this was just a con to get us to drink more in restaurants.

When I visit my French relatives they drink little and often, but their domestic glasses in the cupboard are 100ml.

One pet hate is serving wine it super giant glasses - again it's deliberate, so one feels the amount of wine you've bought is pathetically small and need to buy more so as not to feel stupid. If I order 125mm, I expect a glass appropriate to that size.

Arb.

What about Big Sam in the Chinese Restaurant?