If you thought choosing a bottle of wine was tough enough amidst a seemingly neverending sea of options, just wait a few months. Things are about to get wild. And by wild, I mean fun-sized.
Up until now in America, wine could be sold only in 187ml single servings (think airplane wine bottles), 375ml half bottles, 500ml bottles, and the ubiquitous 750ml bottle (plus of course magnums and all those large-size bottles named after obscure kings and people in the Bible).
Starting January 10th, however, wine will now be legal to sell in the additional following volumes:
180ml
300ml
330ml
360ml
473 ml (16 oz.)
550 ml
568 ml (19.2 oz)
600 ml
620 ml
700 ml
720 ml
1.8 L
2.25 L
That’s right. It’s soon gonna be the Wild West of wine packaging. Need a tiny little bottle of wine that fits in a clutch you’re taking to the symphony? You’re gonna be able to buy it. Can’t drink half a bottle of wine by yourself but think you need more than a single serving? There’s a bottle for that.
They’ll be cute. They’ll be utilitarian. They’ll come in snazzy little six-packs like beer. They’ll be jewel-like and nestled into small boxes of velvet because you might not be able to afford 750ml of that cult Cabernet, but you might just be able to spring for 300ml of it.
It remains to be seen how many of these fill sizes the industry will make use of. The biggest wine companies (think Gallo, Bronco, Constellation, Treasury, etc.) who sell their products everywhere from kiosks to corner liquor stores to supermarkets will likely be among the first adopters of these new formats. That is, just as soon as analysts run focus groups to figure out where the vectors of cost, marketability, shelf space, and consumer appeal all intersect. Or maybe just as soon as brand managers are given leeway to experiment and see what works.
I, for one, welcome the downfall of the 750ml hegemony that has reigned for so long. Of course, that’s as likely to happen as the wine industry universally transitioning to screwcaps. But this new rule will mean more variety in wine packaging in America, and I think that’s probably more of a good thing than a bad thing, variety being the spice of life and all.
You can’t see it, but I’m raising my tiny little bottle to toast you and your new world of bottle choices!
The post Wine Just Got Fun-Sized appeared first on Vinography.
Source : https://www.vinography.com/2025/01/wine-just-got-fun-sized
