Well, the real POS is the guy running my shop.
I think there are many different kinds of pleasure to be had from different kinds of food and wine experiences. I don’t expect to get the very best food, the very best wine, great prices, a perfect atmosphere, a wonderful view, zero work on my part etc. etc. from every single night of the week. Moreover, I don’t NEED all those things every time I go out (or stay in). So tonight I don’t get to drink high-end aged wine? That’s okay. I do that other nights.
We are good cooks and have a deep cellar. Like others have said, I can cook at home and have a fantastic food and wine night. But sometimes I really want to go out! Or I simply don’t have the energy to cook, or I don’t feel like shopping, or I want something that would take too long to make myself, or something I CAN’T make myself. On those nights, I go out, and I’m just fine not having the best wine in my cellar on that occasion if the place doesn’t do corkage. I can almost always find something pleasant and affordable to drink, or just a have cocktail, or have water.
We have good friends who live in Hershey PA. The restaurants around there are not as good as the restaurants near us. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love going and spending a weekend with them, even if it means having lesser food when we go out. There are other pleasures. I felt like visiting the bar at Vernick last night – a very good restaurant in Philly, where I love the food and atmosphere at the bar, that generally doesn’t allow BYO. No problem – we found a nice rosé on the list that went with the food just fine. I know it was marked up, but in absolute terms it was an amount I was willing to spend to have the experience I wanted.
When I go to Paris, the restaurants I love most tend not to have wine I love most. That’s okay – I can have the wine I like best when I’m at home or someplace where the wine is the priority, but I can only eat at XX when I’m in Paris. I’ll find a glass of something that will be fine. One of my favorite restaurants in Spain has an egregiously marked up wine list. I wish they didn’t, but they do and I can see why they do, and know that it works for them. So when I go there, I concede it won’t be about the wine because I’ve prioritized the food and the location and I don’t fuss and rant about their wine list prices.
On the flipside, there are restaurants in town that are perfectly fine, not fantastic, but I have a great relationship, I’m comfortable, they let me BYO whatever I want. I go there when those aspects of the experience seem most important.
Of course it’s great when you have places you can have it all. My point is that it’s fine – with me, at least – if you can’t.
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Agree with much of Sarah’s post. These days I prefer to focus on the camaraderie of a meal with friends and less on the wine and food matches. I can usually find something to drink in my price range and don’t worry about mark ups. I am a pretty good cook also and do my best wine at home or at the homes of friends. Don’t let the “cheap”bone deny you an evening of pleasure.
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Well put Sarah. Very surprised there are dishes you CAN’T make ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
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I love me some nice cold glass of water. Yumm.
I think this is a big point for me. There are plenty of lists where I struggle to justify paying the prices at restaurants for wines widely available in the retail market without the 3-4x markup. However, when the restaurant has clearly either aged the wine for me or procured library vintage wines from private collectors/winery release, my resistance fades really, really quickly.
New restaurant in Brooklyn opened not long ago, to much fanfare with the stars and all, thinking that charging $500 for PYCM Meursault Narvaux was reasonable…
I fully understand that restaurants had hard times due to COVID. That is clear. But I ask if it is wise to raise prices to a level where a lot of people may think that the meal and the wine is not worth the money. If people think in their majority that the prices are too high and stop going the restaurants have no benefit.
BTW: The mark ups for wine has been crazy before covid too. I ask myself why wine in Italian and Spanish restaurants is very often very fair priced and why it is so different in the US and in some other countries. I mean restaurant business is restaurant business – in Italy and elsewhere.
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Sarah’s post is on point and resonates with me. I prefer to byob as I have a cellar of good wine to drink, but I don’t force wine into meals out in restaurants if it doesn’t work. I’m just as happy to have well-made cocktails- as I do often at Kimball House here in town.
I also realize, as she pointed out, that there are situations where a marked-up wine on a list fits the meal and is the way to go when you can’t or aren’t prepared to byob. This is precisely why I was ok paying 3x retail for a tasty Muscadet to go with raw oysters at The Ordinary on Sunday.
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From the last time this was spoken about:
For the record, 95% my markups are, by the glass aside, somewhere between 2x and 3x, with no rigid guidelines other than what I feel is a fair price given all the factors that led to me putting it on the list in the first place. I try to “reward” the unique/obscure/personal pet projects on the list with lower markups, but I also am proud of the fact that I have a lot of really lovely wines under $100 for folks that don’t want to or can’t spend that kind of money when they dine out. I also want to note that the prices may seem high for certain things - it’s in CAD, remember - but that my cost is higher than due to the additional taxes and fees that are a fact of life in Ontario given that all alcohol must technically be purchased through the LCBO, our government-run monopoly; I am paying quite a bit more for a bottle than your average US consumer. I also have almost no access to back vintages from most producers.
Here’s my wine list, the pricing of which I’m happy to discuss.
https://giu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/WineList.pdf
(And yes, I think 4x for by the bottle is getting into the realm of the unfair)
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I’d be drinking Havana Club 7 Años on the rocks at your place
Some places will waive corkage on a BYOB if you also buy one bottle off the list. Its a good solution since it averages down the markup for each bottle consumed with the meal.
I think the gist of it is that one weighs all the factors to make a decision re dining and drinking, just like one does with other decisions. It might be heresy, but wine is not always the most important of those factors.
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Feel free to point out a bottle or two you think are unfairly priced!
The OP hasn’t responded to this question (that I’ve seen), but seems to be whining about markups of 3x wholesale. As I understand it, that corresponds to about 2x retail. I know markets vary, but finding a list in the Houston area with markups that low is rare. Being in the enlightened state of Texas, BYOB and paying a corkage fee is generally prohibited so that’s not even an alternative. If 2x retail is so egregious, as others have suggested cocktails (what’s the markup on spirits ?) or tap water may be better choices.
This was the policy at IALW when we went in pre-COVID days. Not sure if it’s still the case now.
Alright, I’ll play the game 
! By the way, I’m in Montreal so no way am I shocked to see any of these prices.
By the glass, my eyes went right away to:
GARNACHA TINTORERA ‘19 ENVÍNATE ‘ALBAHRA’ castilla-la mancha 18
Envinate Albahra is 23$ a bottle at the SAQ. You’re selling it for 18$ a glass. Ouch.
Bottles:
SAUVIGNON BLANC ‘19 FRANÇOIS CHIDAINE ‘TOURAINE SAUVIGNON’ loire 70
SAQ Price: 19.15$.
GARNACHA ‘18 COMANDO G ‘ROZAS 1ER CRU’ vinos de madrid 195
SAQ Price: 51.75$
DOLCETTO D’ALBA ‘19 BRUNO GIACOSA piemonte 140
SAQ Price: 35.00$
SYRAH ‘19 YVES CUILLERON ‘LES VIGNES D’À CÔTÉ’ rhône 70
SAQ Price: 18.85$
Looking at it quickly, I could only find 4 or 5, not bad . Well done on a very nicely curated wine list. I would be very happy with that list in my hands in GTA. I’ll try Giulietta next time I am in TO.
The 2002 Chave isn’t a steal but it’s not a crazy price and that wine drinks beautifully now.
SAQ prices are definitely better! The Albahra here is $28.50/btl, and I think it’s a cool enough glass pour (and a pricier bottle than most would put on BTG) to make it worth it. The Chidaine and Cuilleron are, admittedly, some of the higher markups, about 3x, because the prices on the list are some of the lowest! I think they both come in around $23-24 a bottle. The Comando G is closer to $65-70 here, if I remember correctly.
The Giacosa is before my time - I’ll actually check what that comes in at, but I suspect it’s close to $50. Might be a candidate for a drop!
That’s very kind of you to say, though, and please shoot me a message when you do come and I’d love to get you in.
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This topic resurfaces often (not a criticism of the OP), and my answer is always the same: everybody’s right.
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Restaurants have a right to organize their business as they choose, and having never run a restaurant, I am reluctant to say they are wrong (although, my gut tells me that they’ll put more wine on more tables at a 2X markup than a 3 or 4X markup, and the outcome will be better for everyone).
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It is hard to accept paying 4X for a bottle; those with some idea of the retail market for a wine will get hives paying what a less informed consumer would. I never would pay those prices.
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You don’t have to go to the restaurant or agree with its pricing strategies. If you go, you pay what they are asking. If you can’t do that, just pick another spot. In DC, I rarely go to the Trabocchi restaurants because they don’t allow corkage on weekends and have a big ticket on corkage during the week, their wine prices are very high, and I am not going to pay that kind of money for high end food and drink water.
Two things other things stated so far are worth comment (a) the Inn’s wine list is pretty broad, and decent values abound. And the somms there will help you find something good at a fair price without making you feel cheap; and (b) those who compare wine prices to the basic ingredient prices for food are being silly. The entire point of the restaurant is the value added by the skill in the kitchen. There is no comparable value add by the wine service. They provide a glass, a decanter, and the use of a corkscrew. Not the same thing.
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I much prefer when restaurants do a fixed absolute mark up, for example 40 USD, rather than a multiplication factor like 2x or 3x or …
A fixed mark up makes it more interesting to buy the better wines thereby having a better overall experience.