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