A wine gallon is a unit of capacity that was used routinely in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
as far back as the 14th century, and by statute under
Queen Anne since 1706.
While Britain abolished the wine gallon in 1826 when it adopted
imperial units
The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed thr ...
for measurement, the 1706 wine gallon is the basis of the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
'
gallon
The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units.
The imperial gallon (imp gal) is defined as , and is or was used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including Ireland, Canada, Australia ...
, as well as other measures, with the US legally adopting the wine gallon in 1836.
The Imperial gallon was defined with yet another set of temperature and pressure values ( and ).
To convert a number of wine gallons to the equivalent number of Imperial gallons, multiply by 1.20095, but to convert a number of Imperial gallons to the equivalent number of wine gallons, multiply by 0.832674.
Some research concludes that the wine gallon was originally meant to hold eight
troy pound
Troy weight is a system of Physical unit, units of mass that originated in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the Grain (unit), grain, the pennyweight (24 ...
s of wine.
The 1706 Queen Anne statute defines the wine gallon as exactly – e.g. a
cylinder
A cylinder () has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base.
A cylinder may also be defined as an infinite ...
in
diameter
In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the centre of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest Chord (geometry), chord of the circle. Both definitions a ...
and high
[π is often approximated as .] – and was used to measure the volume of wine and other commercial liquids, such as cooking oils and honey.
A 14th-century barrel of wine contained , which is one-eighth of the wine
tun of 252 US gallons (954 L or 210 imperial gallons).
See also
*
Gallon
The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units.
The imperial gallon (imp gal) is defined as , and is or was used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including Ireland, Canada, Australia ...
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wine Gallon
Units of volume