Half the size, but twice the enjoyment!

LOVE half bottles of wine.

- by Matt Nixson

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy standard-size bottles too, but their mini-me cousins are a great way of expanding your horizons — trying new grapes, regions and styles.They're just so handy too, easily portable for picnics and the perfect size if you live alone or with a nondrinker to avoid waste.

They also allow you to have multiple bottles on the go at once — meaning you can enjoy a white with your starter, then move to red for your main without feeling ostentatious! Plus, certain types of wine — sweet wines, for instance — are said to age faster in half bottles.

Glass for glass, they tend to be slightly more expensive so you're getting a little less bang for your buck but, in my view, the pros outweigh the cons. And producers see half bottles as a growing market, so while they’re still relatively rare on supermarket shelves, independent and online retailers will increasingly have them in stock.