Yes there's pros and cons to regulating or not.aggi wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 9:16 pmI saw that in the article but it wasn't clear whether it was down to UK or EU legislation.
I've found the EU legislation now and can see it is down to EU.
I think it is sensible having fixed sizes, particularly if it is something the sector requested (which it seems they did, including the UK who are members of the federation that requested it).
If you're part of a big trading block then it is sensible for that block to set the sizes (with input from members).
If not then the individual country can set the sizes (which will still involve people having to do the work). Realistically though they're going to follow what the rest of the market is doing rather than incur huge extra costs to go their own way (or charge a significant premium for those non-standard sizes).
I think the number of 500ml bottles of wine you see in shops shows the demand for other sizes.
But why regulate wine but not, for example, chocolate bars? The same arguments could apply equally to chocolate bars as it could do with wine.
And yet, chocolate bars never got regulated sizes.
But the massively politically powerful french wine industry did.
Like I say, there's pros and cons to regulation/not regulating/more regulation/ less regulation.
I'm very much a fan of the "less regulation" option when it comes to wine bottle size. Infinitely more importantly I'm in favour of having these rules set by elected UL politicians.
And I happen to think pint bottles will be successful for the same reason nobody buys "1.136 litres" of milk.