Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb Here. Those of us who imbibe have
Speaker 1: all said it, I'll just have one glass of wine.
Speaker 1: But even if you stick to that, you might want
Speaker 1: to consider how your supposed single serving actually measures up.
Speaker 1: That's because, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge,
Speaker 1: wine glasses of modern day Brits are now seven times
Speaker 1: the size of their imbibing predecessors three years ago, and
Speaker 1: those glass sizes have increased the most in the last
Speaker 1: two decades, accompanying the rise in vino consumption. Until the
Speaker 1: second half of the twentieth century, beer and spirits dominated
Speaker 1: the British booz scene, but the drinking of wine nearly
Speaker 1: quadrupled between nine and two thousand four, likely due to
Speaker 1: its affordability, availability, accessibility, and all those successful marketing tactics.
Speaker 1: The study authors suggest that when it comes to how
Speaker 1: much we're drinking, our glass size probably does matter. For
Speaker 1: the study, the researchers examined why in glass capacity over
Speaker 1: time to illuminate weather changes in size may have contributed
Speaker 1: to that steep rise in wine drinking over the past
Speaker 1: few decades. By scouring online info and talking with antiques,
Speaker 1: glassware experts, and museum curators, the researchers were able to
Speaker 1: obtain the measurements of four hundred and eleven glasses from
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred to the modern day. What they found might
Speaker 1: be a bit disheartening to anyone who leans heavily on
Speaker 1: that just one glass line. Wine glass capacity skyrocketed from
Speaker 1: a mere sixty six millileaters or two ounces in the
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds to four hundred and seventeen millileaters that's fourteen
Speaker 1: ounces in the two thousands, with the average size of
Speaker 1: a wine glass in twenty six twenty seventeen falling around
Speaker 1: four hundred and forty nine millileaters or fifteen ounces. For reference,
Speaker 1: the size of a standard drink does vary from cultured
Speaker 1: culture around the world, but is commonly around ten grams
Speaker 1: of pure alcohol per beverage. For wine having an average
Speaker 1: of about twelve percent alcohol by volume, that accounts for
Speaker 1: just slightly over four ounces or drid and twenty five
Speaker 1: million leaders. Study authors Zorana Zupin said in the press release,
Speaker 1: for the most part, this increase was gradual, but since
Speaker 1: the nine nineties the size has increased rapidly. Whether this
Speaker 1: led to the rise in wine consumption in England, we
Speaker 1: can't say for certain, but a wine glass three hundred
Speaker 1: years ago would have only held about half of today's
Speaker 1: small measure. There are lots of reasons those glasses may
Speaker 1: have gotten roomier, more affordable glass prices, innovations in technology,
Speaker 1: a healthier economy, and an increased societal appreciation for wine.
Speaker 1: But it could be the people behind the bar who
Speaker 1: have demanded bigger glassware to accommodate the increasingly normalized Megapore.
Speaker 1: Despite regulatory requirement in England to make customers aware that
Speaker 1: the more modest a hundred and twenty five million lead
Speaker 1: glasses are available, most establishments opt to serve two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million leads at a time, or about one
Speaker 1: third of a wine bottle. And if your response to
Speaker 1: all this is that you have no problem moderating your
Speaker 1: intake in the face of such generous glassware, know that
Speaker 1: researchers have also found that the strength of wine has
Speaker 1: increased over the years in the UK at least, But
Speaker 1: regardless of where you reside, perhaps you'll want to pay
Speaker 1: a little more attention to how much wine you're actually
Speaker 1: doubting because apparently just one glass could potentially still be
Speaker 1: enough to cause trouble. Today's episode was written by Michelle
Speaker 1: Komftantanowski and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other standard breaking topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com