How Many Glasses Of Wine Are Typically In A Can?

Canned wine is a convenient way to take your spirits on the road. There's no need for complicated bottle openers, toting heavy glass, worrying about breakage (either full or empty), or stress about how to pack up any leftovers to bring them home safely. The can may also be used as your drinking vessel in a pinch, although we'd usually recommend pouring it into a glass. You might be used to knowing how much wine to buy (or drink) based on the number of bottles, though, so you'll need a new wine math to stock your parties, and also to know how much alcohol you've sipped.  

Cans come in three different volumes by law: 187 ml (6 oz), 250 ml (8 oz), or 375 ml (12 oz) — put your metric thinking cap on, because wine containers are usually measured in milliliters. The suggested serving size of wine of a glass of wine — what you'd get at a restaurant with careful attention to pouring — is 5 ounces, or 148 ml. So the smallest can of wine has slightly more than a glass, but is pretty much a normal pour. The other two cans, which look just like standard beverage cans, have more than one glass inside — either two smallish 4 oz glasses or two 6 oz servings of wine. 

A huge number of wineries are packaging wine in cans now, so expect variety in diameter and height of cans at the store, including cans sold in multi-packs of two or four cans. But the actual volume of wine must be one of the three regulated amounts. For arcane reasons the 250 ml cans were only legal to sell in four-packs until recently, so you'll still normally find the 375 ml cans sold individually, and the other sizes more likely in multi-packs. Just remember that any can that seems like a regular beverage container is the same as two glasses of wine to be on the safe side.

It is important to keep that serving size in mind. We commonly think of a can of beer or soda as one portion. The mental calculation of two servings per can is key, especially when you remember that wine has a higher ABV than beer — you're getting more alcohol per can. Put another way, drinking two standard 375 ml cans of wine means you've downed one 750 ml bottle of wine. So don't let the packaging fool you — keep an eye on the serving size to keep the fun rolling safely.