Why Wines Spirits Have 700ml & 750ml Bottle Sizes [By Kelechi Deca]

This came up during a debate in one of the Decanter’s Forum I belong. Interestingly, many well informed people never paid attention to this minor but very influential piece of knowledge basically because people hardly give thoughts to history anymore.

If you pay attention, you’d realize that wine bottles bought in Europe are basically 700ml which is 70cl, while those sold outside Europe comes in 750 ml, that is 75cl, and not one liter (1,000 ml), except if it is American like Jack Daniels and Russian Vodkas.

I never paid attention to this knowledge so I schooled myself by visiting some online dealers website such as Naija Liquor to check the sizes of bottles displayed there. It is a fact.

The first effort to standardize the bottle of wines was in the 19th century with some of the most ridiculous reasons offered by laymen. Some said that it has to do with the lung capacity of drinkers; others say it is the right capacity for preservation while some say it is for ease of transportation.

However, history as usual always comes to the rescue.
In the early years when winemaking in Europe was mostly a French occupation while consumption was mostly an English preoccupation, there became a need for proper measurement as both countries were using different metric systems.

The English unit of volume was the “imperial gallon” which corresponded precisely to 4.54609 liters. Even till date, many of us get confused when we hear Americans talk about buying petrol–they even call it gas–in gallons instead of litres. One US gallon equals 3.785 litres and this is 231 cubic inches.

That is why I laugh whenever Nnanyi Joe and his fellow dancers try to gaslight people with how much they sell petrol in America, without proper breaking down the metrics. Sorry for the digression.

However, to arrive at an agreement of calculations in the conversion, the French wine makers transported Bordeaux wine in barrels of 225 liters, that is, precisely 50 gallons (imperial gallon o), corresponding to 300 bottles of 750 ml (75 centiliters).

So they adopted that one barrel = 50 gallons = 300 bottles and with this, one gallon corresponded to 6 bottles and two gallons makes 12 bottles. This is basically why wines and spirits come in either 6 bottles pack or 12 bottles pack.

While the above settled it for them on products they are selling to the English who in turn sold to the world, in Europe, they maintained their 700ml (70cl) bottles.

The United States settled for the 750ml, as you know, Americans do not deal in small things. And it aligns the US with all other major distilling countries and will impact a producer’s go-to-market strategy and long-term planning.

But as time went on, the European Union as you know the guys in Brussels are always looking for what to change came up with a rather funny legislation in 1990 dictating that spirit and liquor bottles have to be 70cl while wines remain 75cl.

This restrictive legislation forced European spirits producers to produce 70cl for European market and 75cl for export to America and parts of Asia. Then in 2002, European trade experts acknowledged that the EU is overregulated on issues regarding pack sizes thus limiting consumer choices, so they lifted the rule, giving producers leeway to export in both sizes.

That is why many of the drinks sold by major Nigerian dealers like Naija Liquor come in 700ml, and 750ml.

As American distillers have discovered huge markets in Europe, they have also made the changes whereby they produce same wine or spirit with same bottle design but with different quantity sizes or 700ml, and 750ml.

Oftentimes, unless you are someone that pays attention to little stuff, you would shortchange yourself because in most American shops, both the 700ml, and 750 ml are retailed at the same price. But the 1 litre bottles go for higher prices.