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Wine list prices It was $33.
A couple of weeks ago, we checked out a rather pretentious new franchise steak house in our town, Morton's of Chicago. To wash down our prime aged beef, I selected one of the least expensive acceptable reds on the list: Gallo of Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon. What's wrong with this picture? Look at the mathematics: The Italian restaurant's wine list asks about 1 1/2 times the $20 local retail price for the Chappellet (actually double the wholesale price that restaurateurs pay for their wine). The steak house marks up the $12 retail price by 300 percent for the Gallo wine (and fully four times the $9 wholesale price). Most of the restaurateurs I've asked about wine-list pricing justify this kind of profit margin by arguing that they "add value" to the wine by providing cellaring and service. (A similar argument supports charging "corkage" to those who bring their own wine, an option that's not legally available to most wine lovers outside a few happy jurisdictions like New Jersey and California.) I'm less than persuaded by this argument, frankly. At least in our town, few restaurants maintain cellars, moving wine quickly through the pipeline from wholesaler to wine list to your table; and wine service seldom consists of more than pulling out the cork and giving you a wine glass. I'm planning to revisit this issue in coming weeks, when I'll offer some of my tips for mining the jewels from overpriced and less-than-inspiring wine lists. But before I do, I would like to hear YOUR ideas. If you have tips or suggestions as to how wine lovers can maximize the enjoyment of dining out with wine without feeling ripped off by the experience - or if you're in the restaurant business and feel that I'm not fairly telling the other side of the story - please drop me a note at wine@wineloverspage.com, and I'll try to incorporate your points in future articles. Also, if you would like to discuss this topic with other wine lovers online, we have two relevant topics currently underway in our interactive Wine Travel/Restaurants Forum:
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Thursday, July 12, 2001
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