A drink or two?

BY ANY measure there is considerable confusion about what constitutes a glass of wine in this country. Most people get a guilty thrill when they get a larger than normal glass of wine in a restaurant and feel just a little miffed if the waiter stops pouring too early.

Unlike most other alcoholic drinks, the size of a glass of wine is frequently left up to the capricious whims of the person serving it. They’re having a good day? You get a third of a bottle poured into your glass. They’re in a strop after being dumped via text message? You’re poured a thimbleful and charged a tenner for it.

While the absence of a clearly defined measure of a glass of wine can add a pleasingly quirky, lucky dip element to a night out, the unpredictability could also be leading people to drink far more than is good for them, according to some health experts, particularly when varying glass sizes are coupled with wines of wildly differing strengths.

It is not a complete free-for-all and there are some self-imposed rules in the trade. Many restaurants, including some of the best in the country, serve 187.5ml glasses which gives them a neat four glasses per bottle and somewhat messier diners.

Catering staff who pour the wine at functions, meanwhile, are routinely instructed to get six glasses from each bottle, reducing the measure to 125ml and most pubs offer 175ml miniature wine bottles.

Many people, if they thought about it at all, would consider this 175ml wine measure a single drink but it works out at just over two units of alcohol if the wine is 13 per cent and substantially more than that if the alcohol content is higher.

While the Department of Health says it would like to see the introduction of a small, standard measure, it has not been given a high priority by Government.

When contacted by The Irish Times last week, a department spokeswoman was unable to say if a legally recognisable measure for a glass of wine even existed in the Republic and would only say that the question was “more appropriate” to the Department of Justice.

In Britain, the size of a measure is considerably higher up the agenda and late last month the Department of Health there announced it was planning to introduce a mandatory code of practice for bars and pubs which would force them to offer smaller glasses of wine.

Under the proposals, 125ml wine measure will have to be made available to drinkers although pubs will retain the right to sell 175ml and 250ml measures. “Glass sizes have increased over the years, as has the strength of wine. Too often the only size available is a large glass,” health minister Dawn Primarolo said. “That’s a third of a bottle of wine and takes a woman beyond the recommended daily allowance of two to three units. I would like to see more choice available so people can opt for a small glass if they choose.”

While 125ml of wine might not sound like a whole lot, even a glass of that size is substantially bigger than many health professionals recommend.

Rolande Anderson of the Irish Council of GPs says people need to be more aware of how much they are drinking.

He says a typical bottle of wine contains seven standard drinks and gives the measure of a glass of wine as 100ml. He accepts that most people, if presented with such a small glass in a pub or restaurant, would be dismayed, but stresses that ignorance of the correct measure is “a very serious issue”.

Fiona Ryan of Alcohol Action Ireland agrees. She believes the introduction of a standard measure would go a long way towards educating consumers about the dangers of drinking to excess.

“We have a measure for every form of alcohol, so why not wine?” she asks. “One 100ml glass of wine is the equivalent of half a pint. We have absolutely no problem accepting the measures for beer and spirits so why not with wine?” she asks before answering her own question.

She believes wine more than most other forms of alcohol has a “veneer of middle class respectability” which belies the damage it can do. While it can “certainly add to a social occasion”, she says, “the reality is it is effectively a neuro-toxin and we do not treat it with enough respect.”

Ryan says it is important to separate the measure from the cost and suggests that it is not helpful to consider an outsized glass better value for money.

She points out that what many Irish people consider to be normal drinking is not considered normal in the rest of the world. “We need to get real about that. Irish people hate being lectured about things like this but when you are confronted by alarming statistics about alcohol use and abuse as we are then it does give you pause for thought.

“You go into some restaurants and see a third of a bottle being emptied into a glass – that’s the equivalent of two pints. We have this fantasy that wine is wonderful stuff but it needs to be remembered that this is not a health food.”

Another issue currently muddying the water of the wine world is the absence of clear labelling on bottles. While some retailers include information on the number of standard drinks contained within a bottle, there is no legal requirement to do so although that may soon change.

The Implementation Group on Alcohol Misuse which was established under a Sustaining Progress special initiative has agreed that information on the number of standard drinks or the number of grammes of alcohol contained in a bottle should be shown on the label of the drink in question.

The Department of Health said last week it was “currently in the process” of formulating proposals for legislation that would provide a legal basis for health advice to be provided in this way and said that “such proposals would have to be submitted and approved by Government beforehand”.

Source: Conor Pope, The Irish Times, 15/04/2009