Pricing wine by the glass in a pub: the 125, 175 and 250 ladder, what a glass really costs you, and why the big glass is usually priced too cheap

Price wine by the glass from the cost per millilitre, then decide on purpose how much cheaper per millilitre the bigger glass should be. Most pubs inherit a list where the 250ml is the best deal on the board without anyone ever choosing that. On a house white costing £6 a bottle ex VAT, a 175ml at £6.50 makes 74% GP and £4.02 cash a glass, a 250ml at £8.50 makes 72% and £5.08, and the bottle at £22 makes 67% and £12.33. The 125ml has to be on offer and on the list by law. And the duty is a bigger slice than people think: about 70p of every 175ml glass of 13% wine is duty, before VAT.

Wine has had a rough couple of years in pubs. CGA data reported in the Morning Advertiser on 9 October put still wine and Champagne sales in the on-trade down 8% in 2025, sparkling down 6%. When a category's shrinking, it's tempting to leave the prices alone and hope. I'd rather know what each glass is actually earning, because the wine list is often the one part of the bar where the pricing was set once and never looked at again.

The ladder: what the law says you can pour

Still wine by the glass has to be sold in 125ml or 175ml, or multiples of either, in stamped glasses or through a stamped measure. That's why 250ml works: it's two 125s. Carafes are 250ml, 500ml, 750ml or a litre.

What's not in doubt: the 125ml has to be available, and customers have to be told it is, on the menu, price list or a notice. A wine list showing only 175ml and 250ml prices is the one that catches pubs out. The drink measures law guide has the full wording and the notice you can copy.

And the bottle arithmetic. A 75cl bottle is six 125ml glasses, three 250ml glasses, or four 175ml glasses with 50ml left over. That stray 50ml is either an unpriced top-up or a splash in the sink.

What a glass actually costs you

Two costs, and the second one is the one people forget.

The wine. Bottle cost ex VAT, divided by 750, times the measure. A £6 bottle is 0.8p a millilitre: £1.00 for a 125ml, £1.40 for a 175ml, £2.00 for a 250ml.

The duty inside it. Since 1 February 2026, still and sparkling wine from 8.5% to 22% ABV pays £30.62 per litre of pure alcohol. Your supplier pays it, you pay it back in the price. On a 13% wine that's:

The 7% column uses the lower band, £26.61 per litre of pure alcohol for wine from 3.5% to 8.4%. That's why lighter wines in the 6% to 8% range are getting attention: the duty roughly halves. Worth knowing when the rep brings one in. Taste it first, though. Nobody comes back for a cheap glass of something thin.

Duty is charged on strength, not price. A £6 bottle and a £14 bottle at the same ABV carry the same £2.99. That's why the cheapest wine on your list has the least room in it.

A worked list

Here's one house white, costing £6 a bottle ex VAT. My prices, purely to show the shape:

Look at the last column. Each step up is cheaper per millilitre. That's normal and it's fine, as long as you chose it. Two things jump out though.

The 250ml. Priced pro rata to the 175ml, it'd be £9.29. At £8.50 you're giving 79p a glass away to the people drinking the most. Some pubs want that, it's a reason to stay for the second glass. Others never noticed. Decide which you are.

The bottle. £12.33 cash on a bottle against £16.07 if the same bottle went out as four 175ml glasses (with the 50ml left over). But the bottle has no open-bottle risk. It's sold, it's gone, nothing goes off on the back bar. That's the real trade.

The number that decides by-the-glass: how fast the bottle goes

Every glass price above assumes the bottle finishes. If a white sells two glasses a night and the bottle's open for three days, that's fine. If a red sells one glass on Tuesday and the rest goes down the sink on Saturday, you took £5.42 ex VAT for a £6 bottle. That's a loss, whatever the list says. Two glasses and you're at 45%.

So for each wine by the glass, the question isn't the GP%. It's whether it sells a bottle before it dies. My guides on wine wastage and wine preservation systems have the open-bottle life and when a pump or argon is worth it. The short version: if a wine doesn't sell a bottle every couple of days, take it off by-the-glass, or keep it as a bottle-only line.

How I'd set the prices

1. Start with the 175ml. It's what most people order. Set it from the cost and your target GP.
2. Price the 125ml at or a touch above pro rata. It costs the same to pour and wash as a big one. Pro rata on a £6.50 175ml is £4.64. Rounding to £4.80 is fair.
3. Decide the 250ml discount on purpose. Pro rata is 1.43 times the 175ml price. Somewhere between 1.3 and 1.43 times is the range I'd look at. Below 1.3 times and you're paying people to drink the big one.
4. Price the bottle against the three 250ml glasses. At £8.50 a glass that's £25.50. If the bottle's well under that, make sure that's because you want the bottle trade, not because the bottle price hasn't moved since 2019.
5. Look at the cheapest wine last. It carries the same duty per glass as the dearest at the same ABV, so it's where the GP% is thinnest. Don't let it go below the GP floor you'd accept on a pint.

When the price list goes up

Wine moves differently from beer. Price rises tend to come with a new vintage or a list change from the supplier rather than once a year in February, so it's easy to miss. Check the cost on every wine invoice against the last one, line by line. The supplier price rise guide has the quick invoice check, and the guide to putting prices up has the sums for passing it on.

Counting wine at the stocktake

The by-the-glass list only works if the count's honest. Open bottles are where wine variances hide: a bottle a third full counted as half, or counted as nothing. Weighing them is the accurate way, a 750ml bottle with a known empty weight tells you exactly what's in it. Tenths by eye is quicker and fine if it's the same person doing it the same way every time. StockTap counts open bottles either way, by weight or by tenths. The part bottles guide explains the weighing method, and it works the same for wine.

Common questions

How do you price wine by the glass in a pub?

Work out the cost per measure (bottle cost ex VAT divided by 750, times the measure), set the 175ml price from your target GP, price the 125ml at or just above pro rata, then decide deliberately how much cheaper per millilitre the 250ml and the bottle should be.

Do pubs have to offer a 125ml glass of wine?

Yes. Still wine by the glass has to be available in 125ml, and customers have to be told on the menu, price list or a notice. Business Companion's guidance gives the wording: wine by the glass is served in measures of 125ml and 175ml, or multiples of those.

How much duty is in a glass of wine?

From 1 February 2026, wine from 8.5% to 22% ABV pays £30.62 per litre of pure alcohol. On a 13% wine that's about 50p in a 125ml glass, 70p in a 175ml and £2.99 in a bottle, before VAT. Wine from 3.5% to 8.4% pays £26.61, so a 7% wine carries about 33p per 175ml.

What GP should wine by the glass make?

There's no official benchmark. On a £6 bottle, a £6.50 175ml makes about 74% GP. The real test is whether the open bottle sells through before it spoils. A wine that sells one glass and bins the rest makes almost nothing whatever its GP% says on paper.

Should a 250ml glass be cheaper per ml than a 175ml?

It usually is, and that can be a sensible nudge to a second glass. Pro rata is 1.43 times the 175ml price. Below about 1.3 times, the big glass is a discount you probably didn't mean to give.