Cracco, a half-glass of wine is a half-baked idea. When do we get the half-plate?

In an interview with Corriere della Sera on the occasion of Vinitaly 2026, the renowned Italian chef Carlo Cracco hits the nail on the head regarding a real issue: wine consumption is shrinking, prices are heavy, and wine must be made more accessible. Hence the practical proposal: encourage the glass, even the half-glass of wine. A proposal championed in his restaurant, such as splitting a glass between two customers.

But the half-glass is not a solution. It is a clinical report. It is not an idea that revitalizes wine. It is the admission that wine, in certain places, has now become psychologically unapproachable. Not just economically; culturally, emotionally. Even socially. The customer no longer orders with pleasure. They order with caution. When they order at all.

Let’s be clear: Cracco isn’t wrong in his diagnosis when he says wine must become accessible again. He’s wrong about the therapy. Or rather, he’s proposing one that is too short-sighted. Because the half-glass is the system’s aspirin. It lowers the fever for a moment. It doesn’t cure the infection. It is the elegant rationalization of a retreat. A compromise presented as innovation. A masochistic downsizing of desire. Sold as an inclusive, conciliatory gesture.

Do we really want to tell ourselves that this is the future of wine at the table? Half doses. Half spending. Half satisfaction? Is the answer to the public’s falling out of love really a miniaturized version of pleasure? It would be like saying that since theater is expensive, we save culture by letting the audience watch half an act. Or that since bread is pricey, we distribute half-slices and call it democratization. Stadium tickets too expensive? Come on: you can choose between the first or second half.

No. Wine is not saved by reducing it. It is saved by restoring its meaning. Because the core issue isn’t the quantity in the glass. The core issue is the relationship between perceived value and the imposed price. The core issue is the now widespread suspicion that a self-referential liturgy has been built around wine, where the consumer often enters as the accused, not as a guest.

Wine lists designed more to impress than to accompany. Markups that often feel like messages of superiority. Insider language. Relic-like solemnity. And then we are surprised if the customer retreats to sparkling water, even if they don’t have to drive?

The half-glass, in this framework, does not dismantle the mechanism. It confirms it. It tells the customer: you are right to fear the price, so I’m offering you a smaller dose. But the customer does not need to be infantilized. They need to be respected. They need to find wines with fair margins on the list. Legible proposals. Desirable experiences—including the price, which is relative to every threshold. They need to feel invited, not tolerated.

For years, the wine world has portrayed itself as a homeland of conviviality. Yet, too often, it has spoken the language of intimidation. It has demanded devotion, not curiosity. It has turned the bottle into a totem. Service into a ceremony. Vocabulary into a barrier. It has confused culture with an access code. And now that the public is slowing down, consumption is dropping, and wine is ceasing to be the automatic ornament of the table, here comes the patch: a half-glass, proposes star chef Carlo Cracco.

It’s a clever patch, for goodness’ sake. Even a likable one. But it remains a patch. The truth is more uncomfortable: if the consumer considers wine a nervous luxury, the sector must ask itself how it has guided them this far. And even Michelin-starred dining—or simply ambitious dining, or those in love with their sector—should have the courage to ask how many times wine has been used not as a tool of pleasure, but as a bill multiplier.

As a status symbol. As an oral exam to pass in front of a sommelier who might know everything except how to make the person in front of them feel at ease (and let’s face it, the half-glass proposal is also a bit of an insult to those who have to present it at the table, perhaps after selecting it for the chef’s wine list).

In the interview with Corriere, Cracco hits on an important point when he recalls that wine is table culture. Storytelling. Tasting. Sharing. It’s true. Wine should be drunk and shared, not worshipped from afar. But sharing does not mean dividing an embarrassing cost into two more tolerable portions. It means reopening the pact of trust between the server and the chooser.

It means building more honest lists, truly thoughtful by-the-glass options, and civil markups. Less predictable, more alive bottles. More terroir, whatever it may be. More authenticity. And less narcissism. It means, above all, stopping making the customer feel at fault if they don’t want to spend like it’s an anniversary every Tuesday night.

Italian wine does not need half measures. It needs measure. Measure in prices, in tones, in rituals. In egos. It needs to become a daily good again, at least in the imagination, not just an occasional luxury to be whispered about. It needs to reclaim the table, not shrink on the table.

Because the real risk behind the half-glass is that the sector gets used to contraction and calls it modernity. That it turns renunciation into a trend. That it celebrates survival as if it were a relaunch. That it sells yet another gimmick as a new page in the Wine Bible, to be bowed before with reverence.

But no: if two people order half a glass each, it doesn’t necessarily mean wine has won. It might simply mean it has lost enough that it can no longer aspire to a full place.

Dear Cracco, the intuition is understandable. But it remains a half-baked idea for a whole problem. Wine isn’t asking to be served in halves. It’s asking to be put back at the center. With more truth and less makeup. With fewer excuses and more courage—at least from those who can afford to dare, more than those who only have the courage to believe in it.

With less liturgy and more thirst. With a simple, almost brutal conviction: if we have to reduce wine to get people to drink it, then we still haven’t understood why people stopped ordering it.