I recently purchased a bottle of 1978 Brovia Barbera d’Alba. When I got home, I went to scan the bottle into CellarTracker, and immediately noticed something that I found shocking while looking at the label. The bottle is marked as 72cl, which is something that I’ve never seen before on any bottle of wine.
I spent some time Google searching the subject, and wasn’t able to get a straight answer. The only takeaway I found was that the UK prior to joining the EU had laws stating the contents of a bottle had to be no less than what was advertised or it was a serious offense. In order to protect themselves, producers would advertise their bottles in the UK market as having a little less than 750ml to avoid penalties, though the bottle itself and the contents was no smaller than what would be sold and marketed in other countries as 75cl. While researching this subject the few examples I was able to find were for bottles that are 73cl not 72cl, and I’m more interested in the latter. I’m not sure if the rationale behind the 2 sizes is the same or not. For reference, I’m posting a photo of the bottle, and also a photo of a modern day bottle of similar shape next to it. The bottle does in fact seem smaller than any of the traditional 750ml bottles I’ve seen (I put it side by side with handfuls of bottles in my collection). If this is the case it would negate my aforementioned findings.
While researching the topic the vast majority of the bottles I found online which are 72cl’s appear to be wines from Piedmont from the 1960’s and 1970’s. I’m assuming this isn’t a coincidence, I just can’t get a straight answer as to why this is the case.
I’m interested as to why this wine was bottled as 72cl rather than the modern day standard size of 750ml? Was this common for this time period, and if so why did they switch to 750ml? Was this common only for wines which came out of Piedmont? Any insight at all would be extremely helpful, and greatly appreciated.
If anyone familiar with this topic, please share your knowledge, I’m genuinely interested, and there is virtually nothing written on this topic that I could find online.