After Brexit: Report: Great Britain wants to bring back a bottle of pint champagne

After Brexit
Report: UK wants to bring back bottle of pint champagne

Around a year after the final break with the European Union, according to a report, the British want to use their new freedoms to reintroduce champagne bottles the size of a pint glass.

“Pint-sized bottles were a victim of the EU campaign against imperial units of measurement, which are widespread and known in our country,” an unnamed government source told the Telegraph, as the newspaper reported. “Now that we have left the EU, we can get rid of such rules.” The government is working to change this.

According to EU standards, wine and sparkling wine are sold in 0.75 liter bottles, smaller variants are the so-called half bottle (0.375 liter) and the piccolo (0.2 liter).

The pint of sparkling wine had a celebrity fan

According to the report, around 60 percent of the sparkling wine sold in the UK was previously believed to have been sold in pint-sized bottles. The so-called “Imperial Pint” contains 0.568 liters, but there is also a smaller version, the “Modern Pint”, with 0.5 liters.

A big fan of the “Pint Bottle of Champagne” was former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who ruled Great Britain during World War II, among other things. According to the Telegraph, he is said to have once said of his wife: “Clemmie thinks that a large bottle is too much for me, but I know that half a bottle is not enough to stimulate my brain.” The pint measure is therefore the “ideal size”.

Foreign Minister Liz Truss, who has recently been responsible for Britain’s relationship with the EU, is said to want to examine several rules and norms left over from EU times. The new, old champagne bottles could be on sale again as early as next year.

In the summer, the British government cleared the way for grocers to use imperial units of measurement such as ounces and pounds to indicate weights.

dpa