By-the-Glass Gouging
I had planned to share in this space the fortuitous news that the 1991 Cascina Morassino Barbaresco from my wine cellar was neither oxidized nor corked, and thus served as a fitting tribute to the life and death of Brandyn, my companion of 20 years. February 9 marked the end of her life in 2005, and Andie and I held a private memorial service for her last night, toasting the spitfire whose memory lives on so indelibly that it should survive any dementia or Alzheimer's that may shadow my waning years. Lift your glass, fellow lovers of wine, and repeat after me: To the Queen of Felines, the Queen of Wines, a garnet-shading-to-amber vision of Italian smoothness. And a taste like no other.
My beloved cat notwithstanding, I go where my mind leads me. So it is that I found my thoughts this morning consumed not by the pain of love's loss, but by indignation about restaurant wine lists. I refer not to their quality or readability, but to the Enron rapaciousness that allows dining establishments to so cavalierly charge outrageous prices for wines by the glass. I take you to the environs of Washington, D.C., and give you as a prime example the 2002 Newton Claret Napa Valley offered at 2941 Restaurant, which apparently thinks it perfectly permissible to demand $15 for an unassuming Merlot/Cabernet Franc/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. As Lucy might say, Good Grief.
Now, 2941 is an excellent restaurant; how could it be otherwise, given the previous and present chefs? But it is LUDICROUS and PAINFUL, it is ludicrously painful, to charge almost as much for a glass of wine as the cost of a bottle retail. We know that it is customary for restaurants to charge 200 or even 300 percent of retail for a bottle of wine -- but to put this by-the-glass gouging in perspective, a bottle of the Newton Claret at any decent wine shop will run you about $18. Not that I'm recommending the Newton Claret, because I am not. Certainly not at a 400 percent markup, which is conservatively the case in this case. And probably not at a 200 percent markup, because I've had the Newton Claret. 'Nuff said.
To add wine insult to injury, we're talking an ungenerous 6-ounce pour. I submit that, at $15 the glass for an undistinguished wine, the pour should be a fat seven to eight ounces. Have these wine purveyors no decency? At long last, have they no decency? I cannot begin to imagine what the Wine Autocrat at 2941 would charge for a small taste of my Barbaresco (okay, I CAN imagine, but it's obscene, since one could conceivably, for the same price, order up the Black Truffle Love Letters, the Seared Yellow Fin Tuna AND the Dark Chocolate Fondant. Which I would love to do, believe you me, but then I wouldn't have any money left for wine pairings. So what would be the point???)
Perhaps this outsized love of profit is but a deliciously subversive way of inducing customers to smuggle in their own wine. I rather hope not, as that might work for a time with white wines, but we lovers of reds would invariably, sooner rather than later, ruin our suitcoats and/or handbags with our leaky sneaky carry-ins. Oh HEY! Perhaps this is where the corkage fee custom originated! "You there, with the stain in your hip pocket: That'll be $20, buddy. And be happy we're providing the wine stems."
I'll concede that storing wines carries a cost, and that wines by the glass have long been what I call "Big Ol' Moneymakers," and I would not quibble with this American tradition. More than I have already. However, I would suggest that, when tempted to order an expensive wine by the glass, there are alternate wine routes to consider. The first of these, if you have never had the wine before, is to ask your server for a wee taste. That's the beauty of wines by the glass, you see: You can try them out to see if you like them. It's doubly painful to spend an inordinate amount on a glass of wine that is not to your liking, and it's a simple matter to dip your taster (lips, shnozz, tongue) into a modest half-ounce sample.
If you've never asked for a small advance taste, let me assure you that I have never been refused in this. In fact, I have had servers offer me tastes of three or four wines in one evening, helping me to select just the right one. A good server will do this, cheerfully.
If you fear the censorious frown that may appear on the face of a lesser server, you can either stretch your bravery muscles and plunge ahead nonetheless, or charm your dining partner into ordering a half bottle. This is often a better deal than the wine-by-the-glass approach, although perhaps not as good as ordering a full bottle. Half-bottles may be marked half-bottles, or the wine list may read "375-ml." As most full-sized wine bottles hold 750-ml., 375-ml. means exactly half that. Watch for that designation on the wine list whenever you think you're getting a reasonably priced bottle, lest you be disappointed at what arrives at your table.
At Restaurant Eve, they kindly mark the entire half-bottle selection "Small Bottles," bless them. I do not bless Eve for the pricing on the Green and Red Zin. Yes, it's a 2001, and a fine example of Zinfandel, with vivid berry and black cherry, redolent of earth and spice. I LIKE this wine, and I am not offended when asked to pay, say, $8 a glass. But $61 the bottle? When I can go out and buy it for $19? I clearly need a course in wine pricing. Because it makes no sense to me; Restaurant Eve offers a full bottle of David Bruce Petite Syrah 2003 for $40, and THAT, my friends, is the real deal. Not EVEN double the retail price, and a wonderful wine in its own right.
It is possible that I'm being too hard on these fine dining establishments, which surely pay less per bottle for their wines than we do, meaning that their markups are even more exorbitant. Or perhaps the word I'm looking for here is "extortionate." Oops, I'm pounding the sommeliers again. What I was GOING to say is that perhaps they're not so much greedy as mathematically challenged. You know, the Ignorance Defense so prevalent in our capital city. "Sacre bleu! You mean to say that we are making more than $50 profit on a $20 bottle of wine? Astonishing, monsieur!"
What is truly astonishing is that we're expected to bend over and take it. (Now I'm starting to sound like the Rude Pundit. I do apologize.) Me, I don't like to be so door-mattish, merely because I like wine and am fortunate enough to have the funds to dine out and sample them. Because that's surely the rationale, don't you think? -- "If these people can afford to eat here, they can bloody well afford any price we choose to slap on our wines." My response to that, apart from a brief tirade about the rapidly escalating income gap and disappearing middle class, is to vote with my feet. I love good meals, and I love good wines, and I will likely seek them out more often where the price-to-value ratio is less liable to tweak my Inner Tightwad.
For fair pricing, I like the wines-by-the-glass list at 1789 Restaurant, where most of the offerings are $7 to $8. The list features a St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc, as well as a Babich Sauvignon Blanc from the wondrous New Zealand Marlborough County. Get one of each, for delectable comparison, and try to talk your dining companion into the Baby Barbera d'Asti. I'm a fan of Barbera, and at $6 the glass, SOMEONE oughta try this Baby out.
My beloved cat notwithstanding, I go where my mind leads me. So it is that I found my thoughts this morning consumed not by the pain of love's loss, but by indignation about restaurant wine lists. I refer not to their quality or readability, but to the Enron rapaciousness that allows dining establishments to so cavalierly charge outrageous prices for wines by the glass. I take you to the environs of Washington, D.C., and give you as a prime example the 2002 Newton Claret Napa Valley offered at 2941 Restaurant, which apparently thinks it perfectly permissible to demand $15 for an unassuming Merlot/Cabernet Franc/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. As Lucy might say, Good Grief.
Now, 2941 is an excellent restaurant; how could it be otherwise, given the previous and present chefs? But it is LUDICROUS and PAINFUL, it is ludicrously painful, to charge almost as much for a glass of wine as the cost of a bottle retail. We know that it is customary for restaurants to charge 200 or even 300 percent of retail for a bottle of wine -- but to put this by-the-glass gouging in perspective, a bottle of the Newton Claret at any decent wine shop will run you about $18. Not that I'm recommending the Newton Claret, because I am not. Certainly not at a 400 percent markup, which is conservatively the case in this case. And probably not at a 200 percent markup, because I've had the Newton Claret. 'Nuff said.
To add wine insult to injury, we're talking an ungenerous 6-ounce pour. I submit that, at $15 the glass for an undistinguished wine, the pour should be a fat seven to eight ounces. Have these wine purveyors no decency? At long last, have they no decency? I cannot begin to imagine what the Wine Autocrat at 2941 would charge for a small taste of my Barbaresco (okay, I CAN imagine, but it's obscene, since one could conceivably, for the same price, order up the Black Truffle Love Letters, the Seared Yellow Fin Tuna AND the Dark Chocolate Fondant. Which I would love to do, believe you me, but then I wouldn't have any money left for wine pairings. So what would be the point???)
Perhaps this outsized love of profit is but a deliciously subversive way of inducing customers to smuggle in their own wine. I rather hope not, as that might work for a time with white wines, but we lovers of reds would invariably, sooner rather than later, ruin our suitcoats and/or handbags with our leaky sneaky carry-ins. Oh HEY! Perhaps this is where the corkage fee custom originated! "You there, with the stain in your hip pocket: That'll be $20, buddy. And be happy we're providing the wine stems."
I'll concede that storing wines carries a cost, and that wines by the glass have long been what I call "Big Ol' Moneymakers," and I would not quibble with this American tradition. More than I have already. However, I would suggest that, when tempted to order an expensive wine by the glass, there are alternate wine routes to consider. The first of these, if you have never had the wine before, is to ask your server for a wee taste. That's the beauty of wines by the glass, you see: You can try them out to see if you like them. It's doubly painful to spend an inordinate amount on a glass of wine that is not to your liking, and it's a simple matter to dip your taster (lips, shnozz, tongue) into a modest half-ounce sample.
If you've never asked for a small advance taste, let me assure you that I have never been refused in this. In fact, I have had servers offer me tastes of three or four wines in one evening, helping me to select just the right one. A good server will do this, cheerfully.
If you fear the censorious frown that may appear on the face of a lesser server, you can either stretch your bravery muscles and plunge ahead nonetheless, or charm your dining partner into ordering a half bottle. This is often a better deal than the wine-by-the-glass approach, although perhaps not as good as ordering a full bottle. Half-bottles may be marked half-bottles, or the wine list may read "375-ml." As most full-sized wine bottles hold 750-ml., 375-ml. means exactly half that. Watch for that designation on the wine list whenever you think you're getting a reasonably priced bottle, lest you be disappointed at what arrives at your table.
At Restaurant Eve, they kindly mark the entire half-bottle selection "Small Bottles," bless them. I do not bless Eve for the pricing on the Green and Red Zin. Yes, it's a 2001, and a fine example of Zinfandel, with vivid berry and black cherry, redolent of earth and spice. I LIKE this wine, and I am not offended when asked to pay, say, $8 a glass. But $61 the bottle? When I can go out and buy it for $19? I clearly need a course in wine pricing. Because it makes no sense to me; Restaurant Eve offers a full bottle of David Bruce Petite Syrah 2003 for $40, and THAT, my friends, is the real deal. Not EVEN double the retail price, and a wonderful wine in its own right.
It is possible that I'm being too hard on these fine dining establishments, which surely pay less per bottle for their wines than we do, meaning that their markups are even more exorbitant. Or perhaps the word I'm looking for here is "extortionate." Oops, I'm pounding the sommeliers again. What I was GOING to say is that perhaps they're not so much greedy as mathematically challenged. You know, the Ignorance Defense so prevalent in our capital city. "Sacre bleu! You mean to say that we are making more than $50 profit on a $20 bottle of wine? Astonishing, monsieur!"
What is truly astonishing is that we're expected to bend over and take it. (Now I'm starting to sound like the Rude Pundit. I do apologize.) Me, I don't like to be so door-mattish, merely because I like wine and am fortunate enough to have the funds to dine out and sample them. Because that's surely the rationale, don't you think? -- "If these people can afford to eat here, they can bloody well afford any price we choose to slap on our wines." My response to that, apart from a brief tirade about the rapidly escalating income gap and disappearing middle class, is to vote with my feet. I love good meals, and I love good wines, and I will likely seek them out more often where the price-to-value ratio is less liable to tweak my Inner Tightwad.
For fair pricing, I like the wines-by-the-glass list at 1789 Restaurant, where most of the offerings are $7 to $8. The list features a St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc, as well as a Babich Sauvignon Blanc from the wondrous New Zealand Marlborough County. Get one of each, for delectable comparison, and try to talk your dining companion into the Baby Barbera d'Asti. I'm a fan of Barbera, and at $6 the glass, SOMEONE oughta try this Baby out.
posted by Winetaster | 11:37 AM
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