You seen the smith family bar statements...hardly a drunken bawl! The tapas group are on record from waiter statements of having 8 bottles of wine a night...that's before they had anything at home before going out...to call them half drunk is not wild speculation when trying at the end of the fight to remember who was where and what was happening
At the time that Madeleine was found missing, just four bottles of wine had been opened. They were not finished and judging by the way they rushed off, the glasses were not all empty either
https://www.quora.com/How-many-glasses-of-wine-are-in-a-bottleThere were nine of them. No new bottles had been opened so assuming that they were 4 different wines then it is pretty obvious that the drinking was very slow.... sipping rather than gulping.. Not one bottle had been finished!
Over an hour and a half with a meal that is a pretty low intake of alcohol .
The wine was free and judging by the free wine that we have been served in much better hotels, it was probably pretty unpalatable.
We actually prefer no wine to vinegar. They probably were not enjoying it at all.
No they weren't half drunk. It is unfair to say that.