A new Brexit benefit just dropped: pints of champagne and wine are expected to be available next year.
Yes, reports suggest we will soon be able to buy different quantities of the alcohol, having been restricted to 250ml glasses or 750ml bottles – which is almost the global standard – for all these years.
In just a few short months, 568ml bottles - equal to one pint - of wine just might be available for all the booze-lovers out there – meaning everyone can finally copy Sir Winston Churchill’s habit of buying a pint bottle of champagne.
He allegedly used to refer to it as the “ideal size” as it was “enough for two at lunch and one at dinner”.
If this change to legislation goes ahead, it could present the biggest change to UK drinking laws in 50 years.
EU red tape prevented the alcohol from being sold in such quantities, meaning it was outlawed when the UK joined the European Common Market in 1973.
Brussels favours metric measures rather than imperial units like pints, and pints of champagne did not comply with EU weights and measures rules.
A consultation with the champagne and English sparking wine industries on changing the bottle sizes is “imminent” according to government insiders – and could even arrive “early next year”.
A business department source told The Sun: “This is just the latest win from our push to ditch pointless and restrictive EU rules.
“And what better way than by bringing back Churchill’s favourite?”
The idea has been bandied around for years, with a government source telling The Telegraph in 2021: “Pint-sized bottles were a victim of the EU’s war against imperial measurements, which are widely used and understood in this country.
“Now we’ve left the EU, we can rid ourselves of rules like this. Work is underway in government to make this change happen.”
But, until wine producers see the legal change in writing, don’t expect to see a different bottle lining in the supermarket shelves.
James Simpson MW, managing director, Pol Roger, told The Drinks Business last year: "Unless and until the law on pint bottles is changed (and it is decided whether the ‘authorised’ pint bottle is 500ml or 568ml, being the imperial pint) no producer, whether English or French, is going to go down the route of commissioning new glass moulds.”
