Evening comes and I'm cooking dinner. I open a bottle of wine and pour a glass. Food and wine. Wine and food... Dinner gets prepared and the glass gets emptied. I sit down to have dinner and naturally, another glass. You know the rest. After dinner I put the top back on and store the bottle, either in the cupboard or the fridge.
 
The next night, I'm back in the kitchen, the wine's in the glass. Occasionally the wine has improved for its 24-hour exposure to air. Sometimes I can't notice the difference, other times it has deteriorated. But it's invariably drinkable. I have dinner and store the bottle again. Depending on my generosity in pouring, it's usually still a-half to a-third full.
 
It's by the time day three comes around that I'm running into problems. My life sounds monotonous. Well, that's not true and it's not the problem. The problem is when I go back to finish the bottle, I've got some nice wine vinegar on my hands. This isn't such a bad thing as I use a bit of it, either in cooking or on salads. But if I want a wine I can drink, I can't kid myself that what I have will pass. I have to open another bottle. And so the process begins again.
 
It's worse if a day elapses. Hey, I might go out. Or I might feel like a glass or two of wine one night but then go a few days without a drink. Then I've got two-thirds of a bottle of wine that I don't want to drink. This adds up over the course of weeks; I enjoy some nice wine and the bottle of wine vinegar in my pantry fills. Hoping that it would retard the oxidation process, I got hold of one of those vacuum stopper devices. It does work to an extent, day two is better but I've still got some vinegary gear on day three. Then a friend who works in the wine industry told me to store the bottle in the fridge, even if it's red. I try this. It helps a little bit more but I'm still not happy with the wine I've got on day three. And I'm often there, trying to warm the wine up to room temperature again.
 
So this is when I think, why don't wineries produce more wine in smaller bottles? I know some of the bigger wineries make the small 187ml bottles, but they're not easy to find (unless you're on an aeroplane), the range is poor and well, you might still want another glass.
 
I wonder why the 750ml bottle has become the standard? Can anyone tell me? Is it the ideal size or just the norm? I've heard the French do half bottles, or demis. And there is even something called a Chopine, which is a third of a normal bottle. That sounds ideal to me. Pity I can't nip out to the local wine shop and get one. It would be fun to bust out the word Chopine.
 
I guess the only other thing I could do is drink more. But I'm not going to. As the 16th century Swiss physician Paracelsus said: “Wine is a food, a medicine, and a poison – it’s just a question of dose.”
 
Perhaps I should start a movement for an increase in smaller-sized bottles. Anyone with me?