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 A larger glass of wine and not the amount in the glass might make you drink more. In a new study, researchers found there was a 9.4 percent increase in wine sales-and presumably, wine consumption, when a bar switched to using larger wine glasses. There was no difference in sales when the wine glasses were standard-size compared with when they were smaller, the researchers noted in their study which was published last week in the journal BMC Public Health.
In the study, researchers tracked purchases in a bar-restaurant over the course of 16 weeks, during which different sizes of wine glasses were used. Patrons were typically served about 175 mL of wine (equivalent to 4 glasses in a bottle-large serving) and 125 mL (regular). The wineglasses were one of three different sizes: small (250 mL), standard (300 mL) or large (370 mL).
It isn't clear why people would drink more when glasses are larger, but the authors offered a possible explanation. "One reason may be that larger glasses change our perceptions of the amount of wine, leading us to drink faster and order more," Rachel Pechey, a public health research associate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and the lead author of the study, said in a statement."But it's interesting that we didn't see the opposite effect when we switched to smaller wine glasses."
The results are in line with a review of similar studies by the same group of researchers that found that the size of plates and utensils can affect how much people eat. Other research has demonstrated that the taste of food can be related to non-food factors, such as the colour of a plate.
As is usually the case, the authors noted in the new study that more research is needed to confirm the effect of the larger wine glasses, and reveal ways to take advantage of this effect in public health efforts. For example, one could set limit on the size of the wine glasses that are used in bars to discourage excessive drinking, the researchers said.
The research was sponsored by the government grant and scientists from Bristol University also joined the research team from Cambridge.
Though not advisable from consumer point of view, the study could be useful for restaurants and bars in India and other countries where, bigger the glass more appropriate it is for wine drinking and additionally, it might result in higher consumption and sales by the outlet.
Whatever be the results, it would not be wise to think in terms of making the glass size limit smaller. Wine needs to breathe in the glass and it can change its character as it gets slowly exposed to oxygen. The simple exercise of limiting the measured quantity to say 150 mL should only be encouraged. In this case, more studies are also warranted-in fact they can be carried out by individual restaurants and results collated by a common entity like the present set of researchers-editor |