Wine drinkers drink more if given a large glass, Cambridge scientists find

The size of glass used for serving wine can influence the amount of wine drunk, suggests new research from the University of Cambridge.

The study found that when restaurants served wine in 370ml rather than 300ml glasses they sold more wine, and tended to sell less when they used 250ml glasses.

The same effects were not seen in bars, because they are less likely to sell wine by the bottle.

The research was done in conjuction with the National Institute of Health Research who say that the negative effects of drinking alcohol need to be taken seriously, and that one option could be banning big glasses. Alcohol is the fifth largest contributor to early death in high income countries and the seventh world-wide.

The researchers say that wine glasses have increased almost seven fold in size over the last 300 years, with the most marked increase being since 1990.

In the last thirty years, the average wine glass has doubled in size.

They also note that over the past three centuries the amount of wine consumed in England has more than quadrupled but the number of wine consumers has stayed the same.

Wine in a bar or restaurant is sold by a fixed serving size or by the bottle or carafe.

Restaurants are more likely to sell wine by the bottle than bars.

A preliminary study carried out by researchers at the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge, suggested that serving wine in larger wine glasses – while keeping the measure the same – led to a significant increase in the amount of wine sold.

To provide a robust estimate of the effect size of wine glass size on sales the Cambridge team brought together all of their previously published datasets from studies carried out between 2015 and 2018 at bars and restaurants in Cambridge.

They used 300ml glasses as the reference level against which to compare differences in consumption.

In restaurants, when glass size was increased to 370ml, wine sales increased by 7.3%.

The researchers also found similar internal patterns to those reported in previous studies, namely lower sales of wine on warmer days and much higher sales on Fridays and Saturdays than on Mondays.

The researchers found no significant differences in wine sales by glass size in bars.

Senior author of the report, Professor Dame Theresa Marteau said: