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In a result that will surprise no-one, health campaigners have found that eliminating the largest size of wine glass reduces the amount people drink.
Removing the largest glass of wine from sale cuts the total amount people drink by 7.6%, a four-week trial in 21 pubs, bars and restaurants suggests. With the largest measure, 250ml - equal to a third of a bottle - off the menu, more 125ml and 175ml glasses of wine were sold.
Customers bought the same amount of wine by the bottle, but overall, less volume of wine was sold daily. Sales of beer and cider stayed the same as did the venues' overall takings. "Value for money" was likely to have been a factor in the drop in the amount of wine sold, the University of Cambridge researchers say. However, they believe the policy should now be "considered" for trial by licensing authorities.
Most people who drink wine by the glass in bars and restaurants probably only have one, so it’s almost inevitable that reducing the maximum size available will result in lower consumption. But surely they should be treated as responsible adults who are capable of making their own decisions, and given the choice of a larger measure, rather than being subjected to these nannying “nudge” restrictions.
In the coming years we are likely to see a growing number of attempts to micromanage people’s behaviour in this kind of way “for their own good”. I fear the trend will only intensify if we see the election of a Labour government later this year.
This news prompted the publication in the Telegraph of an opinion piece by Ross Clark entitled An alcohol ban is beginning to look inevitable. Maybe this seems alarmist, but that is certainly the general direction of policy, and who would have imagined twenty years ago that in 2024 the government would be legislating for a gradual complete prohibition of smoking?
No doubt attention will turn next from wine to the size of beer glasses in pubs. From time to time, we see articles called something like “The Tyranny of the Pint”, arguing that this standard measure encourages over-consumption, and also tends to be associated with a toxic masculine drinking culture. Of course there is a strong attachment to the concept of a pint, in a way that there isn’t to a 250ml wine glass, and indeed the term has entered into the vernacular as a synonym for beer. But will we see in the future attempts to make pubs and bars adopt two-thirds as the standard beer measure? After all, most of the world already tends to consume draught beer in measures of 330ml or equivalent.


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