Wine Blog
More Wine Musings, dining out and stuff
Posted by: Trudy and Rob
Friday, February 1, 2008 5:29 PM
We were up in Chicago at a Brazilian steak house for my brother's 59th birthday partythis past weekend and no, as it turns out, we (actually my sister in law, although I did get the
tip) didn't pay $180 for a $20 wine. This would have broken our personal "observed
wine list obscene pricing markup" record previously held by a certain Indianapolis
restaurant charging $72 for a wine that I had recently purchased for $18 minus a 10% case
discount. That wine, by the way, was a very fine and affordably priced Steele zinfandel
zin from the restaurant but instead purchased a French wine that was probably only
marked up about 300% of retail price as opposed to 500% of retail. Remember, also, that
restaurants don't pay retail for their wine purchases! Now we don't begrudge a restaurant
it's profits. They generally operate on a relatively slim profit margin. Alcohol is a profit
center for them. Many times, however, I flinch, gasp or whatever at the difference
between what the restaurant thinks might be reasonable and my idea of the same. You've
probably had the same experience.
Just how, you might wonder, do the eatery proprietors arrive at the prices for their wine?
Dartboards? Treachery? Some obscure formula tied to the price of tea in China?
Believe me, it varies all over the map. Ideally (at least in our view) a restaurant should
actually encourage wine consumption by having reasonably priced options available.
Many establishments do just that and try to increase profits by volume as opposed to say
highway robbery. In pricing their wine within reach of an average diner, they figure to
showcase both their food and the wine together which in turn usually makes the diner
have a pretty good feeling about the place (that is, assuming that both the food and the
wine are enjoyable). Most likely, this will make the customer look favorably on a return
engagement for dinner. The bugaboo, of course, is the definition of what's reasonable.
Willy Gluckstern is a wine consultant/wine writer who some years ago authored a very
amusing, readable book named The Wine Avenger (Fireside Books,1998). While one
may not agree with all of his opinions, the book is very informative about many aspects of
the wine industry (and on the cover he promises to make you a wine/food genius in one
hour...not bad!). He has a chapter or two on wine in restaurants. He relates a story of
when he once wrote a small wine list for a New York city Italian restaurant. He states
that he was "instructed" by the owner to price a chianti wholesaling at $3.50 at $28.
Having some semblance of a conscious, he was relieved that he didn't have to sign the
list himself. This is not at all unusual, in fact it's all too common.
There are a couple of interesting things about many of the wine lists that you might run
across. The first is that the more expensive or well known the wine is (think trophy wines
or reserve bottlings), the less the markup frequently is. In Champaign, Radio Maria, a
place we know and go to fairly frequently, has a fairly extensive wine list. At the upper
end, the markups sometimes seem incredibly reasonable. Of course, you still have to be
willing to pony up some fairly major bucks to purchase these wines (Dave, the main wine
guy there, can guide you through the list very knowledgeably in all price ranges). On the
other end of the wine list scale, frequently, when you've just about abandoned all hope of
being able to purchase anything on the list, the goods at the cheap end might just do the
trick for you. Don't be too afraid of purchasing something that looks suspiciously
inexpensive. It may well be that it's their house wine or something that they got on a
good deal . Granted, it may not be that at all and may actually turn out to be pretty vile.
Ask around from the servers, see if anyone knows (or even drinks!) wine, and see what
their opinion might be. Last night we went to Biaggi's and had a very acceptable
zinfandel (Toasted Head, I think) with our food. It sold somewhere in the mid twenties
and retails around town for about $10-$12. Not too bad a markup these days, and it still
provides a very decent profit for the restaurant. Our server said that she buys the wine
locally for herself and really likes it. Biaggi's also had a good Barbera and several other
reasonably priced wines and, as a bonus, many of the folks there actually know and like
wine! Curiously, the last time I looked at their reserve (think high end) wine list, the
markups seemed higher than usual. This is different from a lot of other establishments.
A final option (other than drinking beer, coke, water, etc.) is to ask if one is allowed to
bring wine into the restaurant and if so, what their corking fee (what they charge to open
and serve your wine) might be. Locally, the corking fee varies from nothing to in the $15
to $25 dollar range. A few caveats with this. One, make sure you call ahead before hand
to see if t's OK to bring in wine. Two, try to always tip the server as if you had bought
the wine at the restaurant. Remember, a big part of the server's income is tip money.
This might also make the difference between being welcomed the next time you visit or
maybe having hot soup accidentally spilled on you in an act of revenge (not very likely,
actually). Three, don't bring in just any old wine. It makes you look cheap and
philistine! The wine should hopefully be something different from what you might find
on the establishment's wine list. Fourth, don't ever bring in a wine that is actually ON a
restaurants wine list. Poor form indeed.
Well, enough rambling on for now. Check out the Toasted Head or The Wine Avenger or
anything else that you might want to explore in the wine world. If you've got any
questions or ideas, send them our way as well. We'd love to hear them.
Comments
Thanks for the insight! The one time I can understand extreme pricing strategy is when the owner/operator has indeed "invested" in a particular name, vintage, style or all of the above, meaning put out hard dollars for wine(s)that will not be on the list for a period of time in the future. By the time the wine(s) is ready to drink, the consumer will be hard put to find the wine except at auction.
Otherwise, I find the low end wine markup (ie: your Indy experience)extremes to be the most offensive. The restaurant probably does not allow you to bring in a wine for a corkage fee, or has an unreasonable corkage fee to boot!
Posted by jmartjohn on February 6, 2008 at 11:34 AM
I'm going to be in Sonoma County next month. Any suggestions for wineries I should hit? I like deep, dark reds.
Posted by bretj on February 17, 2008 at 7:02 PM
This is for bretj We just returned from wine country (more about this in a upcoming blog) and can offer a few suggestions on Sonoma county. It's our favorite, particularly north of Santa Rosa in the Healdsburg area. The Dry Creek and Russian River Valley wine appelations are found up here and the wineries are plentiful. When you get up that way, pick up a Russian River wine road map, available free in lots of places, or look for something locally.
We generally prefer the smaller paces but it's worth checking out some of the bigs, at least for the pageantry. Ferrari-Carano would be one example of this. We think their wines are just OK but their Italian Villa winery is impressive, at least for photo ops. In the same general area you can find Mauritson, a primarily red producer, Dutcher Crossing, a smaller but good producer, David Coffaro, and others. These are all located in the Dry Creek area, on or near Dry Creek Rd. just northwest of Healdsburg. They also have tastings without appointments. If you get there, drive West Dry Creek Rd. south of the Healdsburg area, stopping at paces along the way. The area is beautiful and you'll find some hidden gems. The Russian River wine rd. map has addresses and phone #'s for the wineries if you want to get hold of them. Also, the towns of Sonoma and Healdsburg have many tasting rooms on or near their town squares. We discovered Longboard winery in Healdsburg this trip and liked the pale a lot. Check it out.
Go, have fun, remember to pour out (or even spit...it's OK, they have buckets for this) as you taste to maintain an even keel. Let us know how it went. T & R
Posted by wineblog on February 20, 2008 at 8:54 AM
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