Great post over at Grape Thinking about the size of wine bottles.

The idea is that medium and large wine producers could benefit from making wine available in smaller sized bottles…kinda like what you see with wine coolers, Jack Daniel’s mixed drinks, Zima and many other girly type products. While there are some good arguments for it like not getting screwed on a crappy bottle of wine that you paid good money for I’m not sure that unless you can buy those smaller bottles individually - not in a 4 or 6 pack - it would be of any benefit other than sealing an unfinished bottle for the next day.

Funny thing is I always thought that the traditional 750ml bottles were already, as my best friend calls it, “Individual Sized”. If you want to talk about bottles that are too large for everyday buying, storing and drinking look no further than Italy. While I haven’t been there myself my wino buddy Mark was stationed in Germany for several years (with a stint in Iraq, thank you for your service!) and made several visits to many of the more popular wine regions in Europe.

While in Italy visiting a winery he observed a kid of 18 or so ride up on a bicycle to the front of the winery. There were what appeared to be gas pumps out front and the kid had 2 large bottles (1-2 gallons each) on baskets over the rear tire of the bike. He pulled the pump handle and began dispensing wine into these 2 large bottles until they were full. He sealed them and off he rode. I guess he had some kind of unlimited club membership!

Mark’s other experience while at that winery was the unique tasting environment. Mark and his wife were each handed a glass and pointed in the general direction of a dozen or so vats of wine. They were free to taste whatever they wanted, unattended, unlimited. Beats the hell out of waiting in line at some wineries in Napa and paying for a taste!

In any case I feel that the current wine bottle size is perfect. Making it smaller could cause issues with other wine drinker friends over who gets what is left of what is deemed the best bottle in the 4-pack (if its a flight) and more bottles of what already can’t be recycled.