Pint-sized wine bottles permitted

Pint-sized bottles of wine will be available in the UK this year, the Department for Business and Trade has announced, but many in the industry suggest that it’s an unnecessary measure.

The announcement, made last week (27 December 2023), means that from the beginning of this year, still and sparkling wine can be sold in the UK in 200ml, 500ml, and 568ml (the metric measure of an imperial pint) bottles. For traditional method sparkling producers in the UK this also means that secondary fermentation can take place within these smaller bottles.

Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business Kevin Hollinrake said that the reform was made possible by Brexit: “Our exit from the EU was all about moments just like this, where we can seize new opportunities and provide a real boost to our great British wineries and further growing the economy.”

New WineGB CEO Nicola Bates also toasted the announcement: “We welcome the chance to be able to harmonise still and sparkling bottle sizes and we are happy to raise a glass to the greater choice that allows UK producers for domestic sales.”

1 January 2024 also marked the point from which the UK’s sparkling wine producers no longer had to use foils or mushroom-shaped corks on their bottles, a change that Environment Secretary Steve Barclay claimed would help “wine producers and traders become more profitable, dynamic, and sustainable”.

However, the introduction of pint-sized bottles is what has proved most controversial in the industry.

Liberty Wines founder David Gleave MW suggested that there wasn’t sufficient demand for it, tweeting: “Sheer idiocy. It makes no sense from a quality point of view. And in decades of selling wine, I’ve never been asked for a pint-sized bottle.”

A spokesperson for Kent’s Balfour Winery told The Guardian: “Realistically, we’re looking at ways to take glass out of our supply chain rather than adding more in…Bespoke bottle sizes add further cost, and take more resource to create – which is also less sustainable. Added to that, wine ages more gracefully in larger bottles and so generally tastes better, too.”

Mark Driver, co-founder of East Sussex producer Rathfinny Estate, wrote that that a 568ml bottle “is unlikely to ever take off in the wine trade because no-one makes a pint sized bottle or uses pints”.

Instead, he expressed his support for 500ml bottles of fizz: “I’ve never understood why this measure for sparkling wine is not allowed in Europe, where sparkling wine can only be sold in 37.5cl, 75cl and multiples of 75cl bottles. After all we have, 50cl sized bottles of still wine. Whilst some commentators have said it will never catch on, I guarantee that many will be looking at this development with interest. In the meantime, if other English Sparkling houses follow suit, this could really put the English wine industry on the global map, making it, at least for a time, something specific to our small nascent industry.”

Rathfinny was prepared for the legislation to change and the sale of these smaller bottles of wine to be permitted, producing 800 half litre bottles of the so-called ‘Rathfinny Mini Cuvée’ from the 2020 vintage, and Driver said that he had first considered pushing for a 500ml bottle when he co-established the vineyard in 2010. He also noted that a 500ml bottle offers four 125ml servings, making it “an agreeable measure for a couple to share”.

db contacted the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) who declined to comment on the issue.

Related reading:

Defra hopes to scrap ‘pointless red tape’ with British wine reforms

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