Wine in restaurants

By Dan Berger
On Wine

You would think that with the economy sluggish, and dining out now seen as a pricey luxury, that restaurant owners would doing all sorts of things to encourage more diners — especially on traditionally slow weeknights.

To be sure, I have seen some special deals. Some restaurants now offer weeknight dinner packages, such as the $24.95 price I saw at one San Francisco café that included three courses.

Some menus have been revamped to include small plates at reasonable prices; a few have actually reduced prices across the board.

But other than a few isolated instances, restaurants have done little to make dining out affordable for the wine lover.

I have checked with friends who dine out often as well as sommeliers and wine-service personnel at restaurants, and I have taken note of what I see. Conclusion: We are still paying far too much for wine in restaurants.

One Master Sommelier and restaurant consultant who addressed this question with me recently said the problem is mystifying.

“The way the economy is going, and with (restaurant) seats empty, I’m shocked that more isn’t being done to attract wine lovers with special promotions,” he said.

He added that he knew of a well-regarded upscale restaurant that recently said it would waive corkage charges on Wednesday nights.

“Why Wednesdays?” he asked rhetorically. “It should be every week night the place is open.”

He said some restaurants have said they would waive the corkage charge on one bottle of wine for every bottle purchased. “That’s great for a party of four. But how does this help a couple dining out?”

As for prices, most said they have seen little, if any, price reductions at restaurants they frequent. Most said that prices remain at least twice retail, and that irked at least one wine-diner.

“At a place I go to often, the wines are still a lot higher than they should be,” he said. “There is a zin I like that the restaurant has for $52, but it retails for $24, and (a well-known discount retailer) has it for $18.99.”

Such pricing has been common in the past, but as restaurants face declining patronage, and as many restaurants are going out of business, it’s almost mind-boggling that more restaurants haven’t acted radically to use their wine lists to great advantage.

Here are a few ideas for weeknights:

• Offer the first half glass of house wine without charge.

• Create a wine-flight test. Pour three wines from the same grape, but different regions, and charge only half price for those who can identify which wine came from which region.

• When the special of the night is an Italian dish, offer any Chianti on the list at half price.

• On Thursday nights, sell all wines over $100 for a price that equals the last two digits of the diner’s birth year. So someone who is 39 (born in 1970) would pay $70 for a $120 bottle of Barolo.

• Offer a bottle of sparkling wine without charge to all couples celebrating an anniversary.

Some of these suggestions may seem as if the restaurant would simply lose money on all such deals. But restaurants would still make money, though not as much.

The key to why such promotions work is that they bring diners in to dine who otherwise might not be enticed to do so.

And selling a bottle of wine at a $10 profit, plus a couple of dinners, certainly is better than watching waiters and cooks mill about with nothing to do.

An update to a recent column on pinot noir

A reader questions why I didn’t mention Anderson Valley in Mendocino County as one of my favorite regions (which it is.)

Anderson Valley, located along the western edge of the county in a marine-cooled cleft in the hills, offers tremendous promise for pinot noir, as evidenced by some dramatic wines by a small number of producers.

However, thus far the region’s best pinot noirs are made in tiny amounts, are not widely distributed, a few are quite expensive and recognition has largely been by a small coterie of wine lovers.

The potential remains high, and I’m sure that Anderson Valley will be on my list of great American pinot regions  soon.

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