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Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

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Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#71

Post by djrogers »

prawn wrote: post #46
wott wrote: post #37

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).

As with everything, it's a trend. If you served dinner with a smaller wine glass (an XL5, for example), some people would wonder if you'd missed a memo. Gets a bit silly. Larger glasses allow for more surface area, sure, but they're impractically delicate to use and clean. But then, if you think that's silly, consider jeans. For almost everyone in a Western country, if you left the house in jeans with a really unfash…

> I know circles where you'd be ridiculed for life.

There’s a good signal that those circles are to be avoided.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#72

Post by throwaway5752 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #45
throwaway5752 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/resta…

> 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 pe…

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.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#73

Post by 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....

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#75

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #41
wott wrote: post #37

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).

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/resta…

[deleted]

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#76

Post by oh_sigh »

excitom wrote: post #14

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.

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.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#77

Post by lucaspiller »

rsynnott wrote: post #54
throwaway5752 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/resta…

> Also, I think it's fair to point out Riedel is European and has been around for 250 years. It’s fairly common for companies to make different things for different markets, though. GM is American, and a century or so old, but didn’t exactly sell many Opel Corsas in the US, say. (For the sake of pedanticism, as of this year Opel is no longer a GM brand, but anyway...)

It goes both ways too. As a European I’d love to buy a Fiat(-Chrysler) 500e, but they aren’t sold here.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#78

Post by realusername »

t0mas88 wrote: post #25

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 b…

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.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#79

Post by jdietrich »

maxxxxx wrote: post #42
snug wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

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.

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.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#80

Post by Symbiote »

mcguire wrote: post #61
lqet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's exactly what I was thinking. A modern sherry or port glass is the same size as those illustrated. Note also, " As a supplemental unit of apothecary measure, the wineglass (also known as wineglassful, pl. wineglassesful, or cyathus vinarius in pharmaceutical Latin) was defined as ​1⁄8 of a pint, or 2 fluid ounces (2​ 1⁄2 fluid ounces in the imperial system).[11][12] An older version (before c. 1800) was 1 ​1⁄2…

That's 60mL.

The earlier version is 45mL.

(To nearest 5mL)

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