Has Wine Always Been Sold by the Bottle?

Wine was not sold by the bottle until about 1860, and it actually was illegal to do so in England until then. Glass blowing, the process of shaping glass by blowing through a tube, is thought to date to 50 B.C. in the Roman Empire. Until the 1821 invention of a machine that could make glass bottles, glass bottles were handmade and therefore did not have uniform shapes or sizes. This lack of uniformity is thought to be the main reason that wine was not sold in glass bottles; it made it so consumers did not know how much they were purchasing. Instead, consumers typically brought their own glass bottles for the wine to be put in at the time of purchase.

More about wine:

• It takes about three weeks, on average, for grapes to ferment into wine, but it sometimes can take several months.


• Glass typically is the container of choice for wine because glass does not affect the wine's flavor.


• The first glass bottles for wine were rounded, shaped somewhat like onions, because they were easier to create. The slender modern bottle was invented to help store wine more easily on its side.