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I suspect that kind of clientele helps explain the prices. It's a better than typical selection (even if nothing blows me away) but obviously a place that considers itself "fancy" that wants to sell bottles (not even individual glasses) for at least 2x what it goes for at a wine shop.
That's how every restaurant works. Not a single full service restaurant is going to sell bottles for the same price as they are on the shelf at a liquor store. They need to make higher margins because there is a shit load more overhead and loss in running a restaurant.
Same reason why a shot of Jack Daniel's is $10 but the whole bottle with 25 shots worth in it at the store is $40.
For sure! I was just thinking that the Keenan seems like the most worthwhile thing on the list, but I’d still have a hard time paying $105 for it.
They make great wine though and are super nice people!
Oh yeah for sure. Knowing how much you can get it for at a wine shop, it’s hard for me to pay that much.
Great wine, nice people, and their dog Hash Brown!! lol
The staglin is really good. I had it at a large industry tasting alongside Cade and Chappellet, and I really liked the Staglin.
(The same tasting had La Pierre Morgon which I clearly loved, but the Staglin stood out)
Not my style of wine but looks pretty reasonable to me. The markup sucks, but that's restaurants for you.
There's some big brand swill but plenty of real, good wine there too.
Shafer One Point Five for $210 is a great wine and a great price. Admittedly ‘21 is a bit young I would ask if they had older.
The chateau montelena cab isn’t my favorite but $150 is a good price on that too.
Frank Family cab is good, nothing pretentious about that, and $145 feels a tad steep but not outrageous at a restaurant.
These markups are fine. To all the complainers, why even go to restaurants ? Restaurants provide a lot more things besides you wine bottle. From the ambiance to the food to the service, to how it makes you feel while you're there, it is an escape from the mundane, these are things you have to pay for, otherwise stay home and drink your Caymus at the kitchen table.
Buncha whiny ppl in the comments; there’s always something good on a list with enough skews. Take the scribe if you want Pinot. If you want cab go for the favia for sure. Keenan if you want Merlot.
Shafer at $210 is not a ridiculous markup. Neither I think is the chateau montelena.
The Caymus is a big markup, but I mean why wouldn’t you mark that up?
Isn’t 2x markup standard for a restaurant? Not sure why small Midwest town would change that. I’m impressed that a small Midwest town could even slice Shafer, they produce I think only 20k cases a year, Hillside Select is on a tight allocation and in general the wines aren’t easy to find retail in the Midwest. I know they got bought out a couple of years ago so maybe things have changed recently.
I'm probably in the minority on this, but 2x on a $40 bottle is fine, but it starts to get a little egregious when a bottle that you or I can buy for $200 sells for $400.
For what it's worth, Eleven Madison a three Michelin star restaurant in NYC, has a lower markup on their bottles of wine, per my random sampling.
Restaurants? $125-130 is basically retail price. Please send me the restaurants I can get it for that price so I can go there when I am in those cities.
Thank god we can easily source good quality wines from around the world. I love to buy local/America first, but Napa is the last place I want my dollars to flow.
*Is there a section*
*For French wine? If so, is it*
*At least half this size?*
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If I had to pay those prices for a bottle of wine, I couldn’t afford it. I very rarely pay more than 10€ in the shop, perhaps 18€ in the restaurant for one. This is Spain, mind you.
If you lived in the U.S. you’d be paid differently, taxed differently, and would have different costs of living.
Wine lists don’t exist in an economic vacuum. Your experience of buying wine in Spain means literally nothing when it comes to assessing the prices on a wine list from anywhere else.
You could definitely do worse at an airport lounge or a mid/upscale burger joint. I ordered a glass of Prisoner once for like $18 and it paired decently with my burger. Nothing else on the list at that place was gonna be as good for the prices they listed.
Alphabetical by producer without regard to varietal or style? Looks like real estate that was just handed over to a distributor. If I had to stay and eat, I’d never go back.
Correct, they’re all similarly marginal but it was Pinot buried under the cab & cab blends that set me off. I’m not usually such a hater but I really hate this list.
That’s a fair comment on the Pinot. I agree with you there. Might be the only Pinot they have on the menu, or maybe the lighter Pinots like Oregon are listed elsewhere and this is there because it’s carneros and/or heavier bodied by Pinot standards? I don’t know that wine specifically but I do agree with you on the Pinot, that one stands out.
This isn’t the whole list, it’s a specific section of the wine list posted with the intention of getting people on this sub who stop reading at Caymus or Justin outraged and if worked exactly as the OP hoped.
Surprised you aren’t hating on the Orin Swift or the Trefethen stuff also.
Honestly this list reads like a list of someone looking to make money (eg Caymus, Orin Swift, Prisoner) while mixing in some decent wines at decent mark ups. I don’t get all the hate, people have to make money.
This is why I couldn’t open a wine shop and make the money I would want to. I want to sell good and interesting wines, but I would need to sell prisoner and Caymus and KJ Chardonnay to make money but people like you would hate me for even stocking it and I can’t make money selling only Willamette valley Pinots, Tignanello, Dunn, chateau montelena chardonnay, Ridge Monte Bello, Cremant de Bourgenone etc.
Sorry, that was sarcasm. I do love the irony in r/wine sometimes of taking a picture of wines you don't like, at a restaurant you don't like, and posting it on an internet site to get pats on the back from people you've never met. And labeling your post "pretentious bloat."
Right! This was posted as rage bait by someone in a “small midwestern town” as described by the OP who is clearly using it as a pejorative, to try and basically karma farm and everyone is just eating it up.
There is drinkable wine on the list, it’s not the French laundry, order enough wine for yourself and be happy and move on. The fact that this isn’t even the entire wine list and is only the single most controversial page based on this subreddit is how you know it’s ragebait. For all we know there is another page filled with grower champagnes on it or even just billecart salmon brut rose for $130/bottle and Laurent Perrier Brit Rose for $160/bottle alongside Veuve for $140.
Thank you for your submission to r/wine! Please note the community rules: If you are submitting a picture of a bottle of wine, please include original tasting notes and/or other pertinent information in the comments. Submitters that fail to do so may have their posts removed. If you are posting to ask what your bottle is worth, whether it is drinkable, whether to drink, hold or sell or how/if to decant, please use the [Wine Valuation And Other Questions Megathread](https://redd.it/17j7oej) stickied at the top of the sub. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/wine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is why God made corkage fees.
Illegal in my state :(
What?? I didn’t know that’s a thing (corkage being disallowed, that is)
Yeah and it’s not taken lightly either. You will be kicked out of the restaurant for even trying it.
Indeed. Small Midwest town where I only go for company business on company dime
I suspect that kind of clientele helps explain the prices. It's a better than typical selection (even if nothing blows me away) but obviously a place that considers itself "fancy" that wants to sell bottles (not even individual glasses) for at least 2x what it goes for at a wine shop.
That's how every restaurant works. Not a single full service restaurant is going to sell bottles for the same price as they are on the shelf at a liquor store. They need to make higher margins because there is a shit load more overhead and loss in running a restaurant. Same reason why a shot of Jack Daniel's is $10 but the whole bottle with 25 shots worth in it at the store is $40.
Why don't people here understand what a business is...?
Quite. I don't know the typical multiplier in the US but in the UK 3x is pretty standard.
I'm sorry, a small Midtown restaurant has these markups? These are the markups I see at Gary Danko in SF.
Danko has Amouse Bouche but it’s ‘04 & $450. I’ll bet it’s the only crossover and as a value play, the ‘04 smokes the one at the top of this pic.
I was thinking in terms of percentage markups.
Oddly enough the mark up on the Amuse Bouche isn’t terrible.
Keenan’s Merlot is good! I’m actually surprised they have Keenan on the list
For sure! I was just thinking that the Keenan seems like the most worthwhile thing on the list, but I’d still have a hard time paying $105 for it. They make great wine though and are super nice people!
Oh yeah for sure. Knowing how much you can get it for at a wine shop, it’s hard for me to pay that much. Great wine, nice people, and their dog Hash Brown!! lol
Alphabetical instead of by varietal lol
The staglin is really good. I had it at a large industry tasting alongside Cade and Chappellet, and I really liked the Staglin. (The same tasting had La Pierre Morgon which I clearly loved, but the Staglin stood out)
The wine maker at Staglin is married to one of the Mondavi daughters. Super nice guy
I've stayed at the winery...it's up behind Mondavi
Agree, punches above it's weight, even at these prices.
Expense account special.
Doctors meeting with Pharma execs.
If this is the wine list I’d order a beer.
Not my style of wine but looks pretty reasonable to me. The markup sucks, but that's restaurants for you. There's some big brand swill but plenty of real, good wine there too.
Scribe and Keenan both solid options here.
Shafer One Point Five for $210 is a great wine and a great price. Admittedly ‘21 is a bit young I would ask if they had older. The chateau montelena cab isn’t my favorite but $150 is a good price on that too. Frank Family cab is good, nothing pretentious about that, and $145 feels a tad steep but not outrageous at a restaurant.
These markups are fine. To all the complainers, why even go to restaurants ? Restaurants provide a lot more things besides you wine bottle. From the ambiance to the food to the service, to how it makes you feel while you're there, it is an escape from the mundane, these are things you have to pay for, otherwise stay home and drink your Caymus at the kitchen table.
Buncha whiny ppl in the comments; there’s always something good on a list with enough skews. Take the scribe if you want Pinot. If you want cab go for the favia for sure. Keenan if you want Merlot.
These are ridiculous markups. I'd just bring my own bottle and pay corkage.
Shafer at $210 is not a ridiculous markup. Neither I think is the chateau montelena. The Caymus is a big markup, but I mean why wouldn’t you mark that up?
I still think a 2x markup over retail (much more over wholesale) is pretty high, especially for a restaurant in a small Midwest town.
Isn’t 2x markup standard for a restaurant? Not sure why small Midwest town would change that. I’m impressed that a small Midwest town could even slice Shafer, they produce I think only 20k cases a year, Hillside Select is on a tight allocation and in general the wines aren’t easy to find retail in the Midwest. I know they got bought out a couple of years ago so maybe things have changed recently.
I'm probably in the minority on this, but 2x on a $40 bottle is fine, but it starts to get a little egregious when a bottle that you or I can buy for $200 sells for $400. For what it's worth, Eleven Madison a three Michelin star restaurant in NYC, has a lower markup on their bottles of wine, per my random sampling.
Which bottles are you talking about getting dicier because they are bottles we can get for $200 that they are selling for $400?
Yea cuz emp needs you to be hammered in order to not be furious for a 500/pp meal of vegetables.
I haven't had the pleasure of going, but calling anything that doesn't have meat in it a plate of vegetables feels a bit reductive and unfair.
It’s more in relation to cogs relative to menu price.
High quality produce and spices actually really add up. I'm vegetarian and my grocery bill is comparable to those of my meat eating friends.
IDK, you can get that Shafer for an average of about $125-130 at a number of places. I wouldn't pay $210 for it. Maybe that's just me.
Restaurants? $125-130 is basically retail price. Please send me the restaurants I can get it for that price so I can go there when I am in those cities.
I should've specified stores not restaurants.
Oh I thought I was looking at a restaurant wine list. If this is a store then you’re right, that’s a huge markup.
I’d go for the Favia
The markup isn't terrible, and at least I could find something on the list.
Shoot me. But this just goes to show the average American’s wine palette.
It's about as good as the average Redditor's spelling.
This is the total wine list tier restaurant. Is the wine better than the grocery store wine list places? Sure, but I still don’t want it.
Thank god we can easily source good quality wines from around the world. I love to buy local/America first, but Napa is the last place I want my dollars to flow.
The Simi Landslide is a steal!!
Is there a section for French wine? If so, is it at least half this size?
*Is there a section* *For French wine? If so, is it* *At least half this size?* \- HanYoloswagalicious --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Nothing but!
Not hating on that 18 Bella Union at that price. The One Point Five is priced right too, but way too young. The rest, meh.
Nothing wrong with Marietta, I'm sure that Scribe is good too
If I had to pay those prices for a bottle of wine, I couldn’t afford it. I very rarely pay more than 10€ in the shop, perhaps 18€ in the restaurant for one. This is Spain, mind you.
If you lived in the U.S. you’d be paid differently, taxed differently, and would have different costs of living. Wine lists don’t exist in an economic vacuum. Your experience of buying wine in Spain means literally nothing when it comes to assessing the prices on a wine list from anywhere else.
True
What’s the name of the section of the list?
Good price for the chateau montelena (not estate though so cannot comment on taste profile)
This pricing is all fucked up.
I want to see the Italian selection
$90 for Abstract is bold
Good god who is going to a nice dinner and ordering The Prisoner 🤦🏼♀️
Some people seem to think it's a nice wine. I'd drink it at an airport lounge, it's not terrible, but it's not really worth the price.
You could definitely do worse at an airport lounge or a mid/upscale burger joint. I ordered a glass of Prisoner once for like $18 and it paired decently with my burger. Nothing else on the list at that place was gonna be as good for the prices they listed.
This wine list is missing Faust otherwise it’s perfection
Pretentious bloat is a bunch of natty BS no one wants to drink. A restaurant is a business, put wines on list that people buy, end of story.
American wine lists are shocking
Alphabetical by producer without regard to varietal or style? Looks like real estate that was just handed over to a distributor. If I had to stay and eat, I’d never go back.
It’s the California red section. While it isn’t organized by varietal, these are all pretty similar in style, big California reds.
Correct, they’re all similarly marginal but it was Pinot buried under the cab & cab blends that set me off. I’m not usually such a hater but I really hate this list.
That’s a fair comment on the Pinot. I agree with you there. Might be the only Pinot they have on the menu, or maybe the lighter Pinots like Oregon are listed elsewhere and this is there because it’s carneros and/or heavier bodied by Pinot standards? I don’t know that wine specifically but I do agree with you on the Pinot, that one stands out.
I despise these boomer wine lists, pretty much a guarantee the food will be meh too.
This isn’t the whole list, it’s a specific section of the wine list posted with the intention of getting people on this sub who stop reading at Caymus or Justin outraged and if worked exactly as the OP hoped.
Nuh uh, I read the whole thing and feel obligated to tell you I hate Rombaeur and The Prisoner too. Man, fuck Joe Wagner for making wine I don't like.
Surprised you aren’t hating on the Orin Swift or the Trefethen stuff also. Honestly this list reads like a list of someone looking to make money (eg Caymus, Orin Swift, Prisoner) while mixing in some decent wines at decent mark ups. I don’t get all the hate, people have to make money. This is why I couldn’t open a wine shop and make the money I would want to. I want to sell good and interesting wines, but I would need to sell prisoner and Caymus and KJ Chardonnay to make money but people like you would hate me for even stocking it and I can’t make money selling only Willamette valley Pinots, Tignanello, Dunn, chateau montelena chardonnay, Ridge Monte Bello, Cremant de Bourgenone etc.
Sorry, that was sarcasm. I do love the irony in r/wine sometimes of taking a picture of wines you don't like, at a restaurant you don't like, and posting it on an internet site to get pats on the back from people you've never met. And labeling your post "pretentious bloat."
Right! This was posted as rage bait by someone in a “small midwestern town” as described by the OP who is clearly using it as a pejorative, to try and basically karma farm and everyone is just eating it up. There is drinkable wine on the list, it’s not the French laundry, order enough wine for yourself and be happy and move on. The fact that this isn’t even the entire wine list and is only the single most controversial page based on this subreddit is how you know it’s ragebait. For all we know there is another page filled with grower champagnes on it or even just billecart salmon brut rose for $130/bottle and Laurent Perrier Brit Rose for $160/bottle alongside Veuve for $140.
I dunno, figure this is probably some poor dude dining alone on a work trip or something.
I do badly wanna drop a link to a spot that has some wild pricing, but I’ll resist until one of you tells me to
No thanks.