How many glasses of wine in a bottle?

Random questions pop up all the time and “How many glasses of wine in a bottle?” is certainly right up there. You might be sitting idly around the pool with a chilled and freshly opened bottle of Bonnievale The River Collection Sauvignon Blanc, or seeking a way out of an uncomfortable pause at the dinner table.

You might even think it’s a good measure of how much you’ve had to drink.

Define “glass of wine”

Truth is, there are several variables to consider here, and therefore a variety of answers too. How many glasses of wine in a bottle is not as straightforward as you’d think! Before we can get a specific answer, we have more questions: how big is your wine glass or how big is your wine bottle? Is it a dessert wine, from which you might pour smaller glasses, a bubbly like The Vale or even a de-alcoholised wine like Neat.

Most wine in the world and certainly in South Africa is still wine consumed from a glass bottle that holds 750ml. Many producers only bottle wine in 750ml bottles, like Bonnievale. Now, if you consistently pour 125ml – one of the most popular measures at restaurants – from a 750ml bottle, you get the answer.

How many glasses of wine in a bottle? The standard 750ml bottle of still wine of average alcohol content will pour six glasses, if a consistent 125ml is dispensed with each pour. A smaller pour of 50ml, for a dessert wine for example, will deliver 15 portions from the same bottle. A larger pour of 150ml, equates to five glasses.

If the wine served is higher in alcohol, such as a port, the per wine glass portions are likely to be smaller as well. Change the packaging size from the typical 750ml container to something else and the equation changes dramatically too.

Define “bottle of wine”

Most commonly, wine bottle sizes range from 187.5ml to the 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar. The latter contains the equivalent of 20 750ml wine bottles! Then, there are bag-in-a-box wines too, which have their own sizes.

We digress. Back to the question of how many glasses of wine in a bottle, and whether it’s a good measure of how much you’ve had to drink. We already know we need to be more accurate before answering.

In South Africa, alcohol consumption is measured by legislated units defined as 8g of pure alcohol. We did the calculation for you: in a 175ml glass of wine containing 12% alcohol by volume (ABV), there are two units. Wines vary in alcohol strength, but 12% is an accurate approximation for the ABV of most table wines.

It’s also a much better way of measuring your alcohol intake than working out how many glasses of wine in a bottle.