Split / Piccolo · 187.5ml · ¼ Bottle

Photo: Agne27, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Journey Through Glass

Piccolo is Italian for “small,” and this bottle earns the name: at 187.5ml it holds exactly one quarter of a standard bottle — one proper glass, no leftovers, no sharing required. In the trade it’s also called a split (especially in Champagne, where splits are the backbone of the mimosa economy), a quarter bottle, or a pony.

The piccolo is the airline mini and the picnic hero. It slips into a gift bag, a hotel minibar, or a carry-on with zero drama, and it answers the eternal weeknight question — “do I really want to open a whole bottle?” — with a graceful no. One glass, cork (or, more often, screw cap) popped, evening sorted.

Small bottles like this have been around since the 19th century, when merchants used them as tasting samples. The modern piccolo found its true calling in the sky: airlines needed a single-serve wine that wouldn’t slosh, spill, or go to waste at 35,000 feet, and the 187.5ml format fit the tray table perfectly.

Don’t let the size fool you — piccolos are serious business at celebrations too. They’re a favorite for wedding favors (personalized labels, one per guest), tasting flights, and hotel welcome gifts. Four piccolos make one standard bottle, which means a table of four can each drink something completely different and nobody has to compromise.

The catch? Wine ages faster in small formats — there’s more oxygen exposure per sip — so piccolos are made for drinking now, not cellaring. Which, honestly, was the plan all along.