The poet Robert Burns imagined a man toasting his lover with a “pint o’ wine”, and Winston Churchill was perhaps the most famous proponent of the pint bottle for champagne. Now, Rishi Sunak’s government has spied a “Brexit opportunity” to legalise the sale of wine by the pint once more – if it can persuade anyone to make the bottles.
Still and sparkling wine will be sold in 200ml, 500ml and 568ml (pint) sizes in 2024, alongside existing measures, under new rules, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) announced on Wednesday. It said the change was made possible by Brexit.
However, the pint-sized move appeared to be the extent of a push towards imperial measures, after a government consultation into allowing more businesses to buy and sell using them resulted in no new action.
The government under Boris Johnson had last year said it was considering bringing back imperial measures such as pounds and ounces for use by people such as shop traders if they wished. A consultation said the government was looking at the change in order to “capitalise on the benefits of Brexit”, citing the “totemic” metric martyrs court cases against traders who refused to switch to grams and kilograms.
That consultation found little to like in going back to the more complicated imperial measurements, which require calculations such as 16 ounces to a pound or eight pints to a gallon. The DBT said: “Following the extensive consultation, the government has decided not to introduce any new legislation in this area. But new guidance has been issued to promote awareness and use of imperial measurements.”
The UK officially adopted the metric system gradually between 1995 and 1999, moving it in line with other parts of the EU and much of the rest of the world. The minor reforms to wine measures are optional – like a related measure to encourage producers of pint beer glasses to add a crown – meaning bars, clubs, restaurants and supermarkets will still be able to sell standard bottles and half bottles.
The pint measure was common before the UK joined the European Economic Community, the precursor to the EU, in 1973. Churchill favoured the measure for champagne because it was “enough for two at lunch and one at dinner”, according to Hubert de Billy, whose great-great-grandfather Pol Roger was the maker of the British prime minister’s favourite champagne.
Burns’s reference to pints of wine came in a short song imagining a man leaving his “bonny Mary” for war. It starts: “Gae bring tae me a pint o’ wine, And fill it in a silver tassie, That I may drink, before I go, A service to my bonnie lassie.”
Sam Allardyce also gained an association with wine by the pint after he was forced to resign as England men’s football manager. In undercover footage, he was filmed with a pint of pale liquid – identified by some people, almost certainly erroneously, as wine – while appearing to negotiate his fee to advise on transfers.
Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for enterprise, markets and small business, said, apparently seriously, that “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.
“Innovation, freedom and choice – that’s what today’s announcement gives to producers and consumers alike.”
The change has been brewing for some time. Two years ago the Daily Telegraph reported that “work is under way in government to make this change happen”. Yet it is unclear if any winemakers will sell by the pint any time soon.
De Billy wrote in 2017 that Pol Roger was talking to its bottle suppliers about having pint bottles made, but its managing director last year said no company would consider actually commissioning them until the law changed. People wanting to imitate Churchill will have to wait longer, as champagne bottles must be aged, sometimes for several years.
“No one is going to make a pint-sized bottle,” said one English winemaker, who asked not to be named because the debate about imperial measures was so “toxic”. “In order to make a pint-sized bottle you’re going to have to invest a huge amount of money. It’s a silly measure.”
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Wine may only be legally sold in the UK in quantities prescribed under the Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988, ranging from the smallest at 100ml up to 10 litres.
The size of a standard bottle of wine is 750ml, enough for six small glasses. Half bottles at 375ml are common, and still wine may legally be sold in the UK at 500ml – meaning the new pint measure would represent a difference of 68ml.
However, some in the English sparkling wine industry will approve of the correction of a legislative anomaly that means that wine cannot currently be sold in 500ml measures if it has bubbles. WineGB, a lobby group for the UK industry, welcomed the move.
But the change fell flat with Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park and the party’s Treasury spokesperson.
“Is this really the best this Conservative government can offer?” she said.
“Instead of fixing the crisis in our NHS, cleaning up our rivers and tackling crime, this Conservative government has been spending its time developing plans to introduce a new bottle of wine size. You couldn’t make it up. Sunak and his government should be flat out fixing the very real crises our country faces, not debating wine.”
