Once upon a time in Britain buying wine in a pub or bar was seen as the preserve of oddballs and wannabe continentals. Men drank beer, by which I mean bitter or mild, never lager (at least until the mid 1970s) usually in handled glasses and women drank sherry, martini, possibly gin or if feeling a little racy Babycham. No, I don't know either, it was horrible stuff.
Then, almost overnight, drinking wine became de rigueur and when I was growing up in the late 1980s wine bars became the 'in' thing, with many having no draught beer at all. If you wanted beer then you drank it out of a bottle but that's a different story altogether. If I remember rightly in my home town (now city) of Wolverhampton 'The Press' was the archetypal bar of this type. Of course I don't know this to be exactly true as I was too young to go in there but that is how I remember it.
In those days there were two types of wine available, red or white, take your choice and it was served in 125ml measures in goblet glasses. The only time buying a bottle of wine was acceptable was in a restaurant where of course quite a performance was given by the maitre d' in presenting and opening the bottle and then allowing you to taste. That type of presentation still does go on today, I do it myself as part of my job, but a lot of the glamour has been lost with the coming of screwcap bottles.
For many years as wine drinking developed the 125ml continued to be the only pour available until someone, not sure who - possibly the same advertising agency who thought up the Large Big Mac Meal decided a large measure of 175ml should be offered. For a little while these two measures worked hand in hand until about 10 years ago someone decided wine should be sold in 250ml measures and the 125ml measure was quietly dropped by most establishments. In recent times the 125ml has made a bit of a comeback as binge drinking and excessive consumption has led for calls for interested parties in the hospitality trade to discourage the worst excesses. Of course, wine isn't really the culprit it is cheap spirits and alcopops that do the most damage.
Getting back to my point about buying the bottle the phrase is actually a family thing. It was first used by my mother-in-law Norma when having lunch in the Lygon Arms, a very fine and famous hotel in the Cotswolds, a few years ago. Now I have to be very careful what I say about Norma as she treats me like her own son and I love her to bits but she does like a glass or two. There is a point about this though. At one time you went to the bar and ordered two glasses of wine. End of. No one thought "ooh, would it be better value to get the bottle". These days everyone savvy enough to do some simple maths should be able to calculate what is the best value way of buying your wine and most operators work their prices out so that buying the bottle will give you best value. Not all though and if you ever see wine priced so that three 250ml glasses is less than the bottle price ask them if you can have those 3 glasses but left in the bottle and see what they say.
In my business we continue to offer wine at 125ml, 175ml, 250ml and bottle size and I spend a considerable amount of time working out how to price them accordingly (Actually a good rule of thumb is £1 between each glass size - Try it, it works perfectly) so that each larger size gives you a bit better value. But I'm also offering something for all as not everyone wants to drink a 250ml bucket of wine and with screwcaps you can even take the bottle home.
Next Time:
Australian wine. I go to Australia for three weeks tomorrow and hope to be blogging from there.
Enjoy your wine. Cheers!
Simon
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