Smaller Wine Glass Key to Curbing Consumption

Do you know how much wine you are pouring into your glass?

The best hangover cure? A smaller glass!

That’s one of the findings from a study exploring how much we pour into our wine glasses, run by Cornell and Iowa University researchers.

In the same way that dieters are advised to put their food on smaller plates, wine lovers trying to curb their intake should use smaller glasses and place them on a table while pouring.

Entitled “Half Full or Empty: Cues That Lead Wine Drinkers to Unintentionally Overpour,” the study found that consumers serve 11.9 percent more wine in a wide glass than in a narrow one, without realizing that the serving size is greater. The pour also increases by 12.2 percent if the glass is being held rather than sitting on a table. 

“People have trouble assessing volumes,” the study's lead author, Laura Smarandescu, an assistant professor of marketing at Iowa State, told the Cornell Chronicle. “They tend to focus more on the vertical than the horizontal measures. That’s why people tend to drink less when they drink from a narrow glass, because they think they’re drinking more.”

Study co-author Doug Walker added: "If you ask someone how much they drink and they report it in a number of servings, for a self-pour that's just not telling the whole story. One person's two is totally different than another person's two."

The color of the glass is also a factor in serving size. When there was little contrast between the glass and the wine – for example, a white wine in a clear glass – the participants poured 9 percent more wine than when they were serving red wine in a clear glass. 

Dr. Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell, advised: “If you want to pour – and drink – less wine, stick to the narrow wine glasses and only pour if your glass is on the table or counter and not in your hand. In either case, you’ll pour about 9 to 12 percent less.”

The research was conducted using 73 participants, all college students of drinking age and published in the journal Substance Use and Misuse.

In 2005, Wansink published a similar study in the British Medical Journal, which found that both students and experienced bartenders poured more alcohol into short, wide glasses than into tall slender glasses.

Despite an average of six years of experience, bartenders poured 20.5 percent more liquid into short, wide glasses than tall, slender ones.

Source: www.wine-searcher.com