Very much mirrors the discussion WBers have been having on this thread,:
I wonder if there is another layer here with distributors favoring restaurants with allocations, and distributors being able to price wines higher due to the higher prices at restaurants in the first place.
Similarly, the standard price for a bottle in restaurants used to be three times the wholesale price. Now, too many restaurants are charging four and even five times the wholesale price, trying to achieve the profits they can’t make otherwise through wine sales.
That’s being generous. For many places, I would replace the word “wholesale” with “retail”.
You could retitle the piece “The Enshittification of American Wine Culture”
Crappy wine, high prices, poor service.
What an infuriatingly arrogant article.
It’s not that they are doing anything wrong. I think it simply doesn’t occur to people to want to have something more with their meal. Maybe that is the influence of cocktail culture. Many restaurant reviews nowadays dwell on cocktails, but don’t even mention wine.
This is condescending twaddle. People are aware of wine. They’re also aware that wine in restaurants is a naked ripoff. It’s absurd to expect diners to pay huge markups over retail prices (never mind distributor prices) just to pop open a bottle of wine. It feels like a scam to consumers and rightly so.
It’s really not that complicated. It’s the pricing. I know this is well-trodden ground at this point but clearly it still needs to be repeated.
I will never pay $80 for a bottle of Kim Crawford SB!!! 
I agree here. Not the whole story, of course, but the price of a glass of wine at 14-$20+ is a major turnoff , especially for younger folks or those with limited funds. My daughters, who grew up with wine and drink it fairly regularly, say that the cost of the full wine experience - drinking wine throughout the meal at dinner is simply prohibitive. They will “pre-game” with a bottle at someone’s home then maybe one drink with dinner, then go out to a bar or wherever they go.
I f I am not consuming a bottle, I don’t want to pay for a $20 glass of mediocre wine, either.
I don’t really see the article as arrogant or infuriating, and he specifically mentions the price barrier.
Anecdote alert: I hosted a work dinner for 6, ages something like 28-50 this week. Obsessed over whether I should bring a few bottles and pay corkage, ultimately decided to not be fussy wine guy.
Glad I didn’t roll up with 3 bottles, because even with the company paying, I was the only person who ordered wine (1 $12 glass of rose). The rest cocktails or Diet Coke. Wine only peripherally on their radar, even as they all vaguely “like” wine.
Work dinners are weird. If I was the youngest or most junior, I’m not ordering anything too expensive unless the leader makes it explicitly clear to order whatever, obviously within reason.
Not with that attitude!
Somewhat related, we are a restaurant in Nantucket and the Billecart Rosé was $160 for a 750 and the Dom was $260. There was another champagne on the menu at a good price too. Some other values floating around but I was surprised by that pricing, especially the Dom
I bet they are selling those too.
Id buy DP at that price all day long
Not only are the prices already 3x retail, but with America’s ridiculous tipping culture, they expect you to tip 20% on top of the bottle price. I don’t care if a sommelier helped me out, that’s literally their job. They’re paid well above a server’s wage to provide that service and sell wine.
My wife always grumbles when I take a bottle of wine to a restaurant- she thinks it looks pretentious. I don’t care. With wine prices already 2.5-3x retail, it’s a convenient way to have alcohol while dining out. Fortunately, while everything else has become crazy expensive, the corkage fees locally have remained pretty constant at $20-$25, so basically a glass of wine. I’ve also found that if you develop a good rapport with the staff over time, sometimes they will waive it.
I’d jump for joy if BYOBottle and paying a reasonable corkage fee became the norm, in each and every state. So frustrating.
We had a great dinner at a Thai place in town last night, except for the wine and the cheapest glass was $14. Walked away thinking I’ll pay the $25 corkage next time and bring something from the cellar that will be tremendously better than they offered. But very few people in my demographic (late 30s) are ordering bottles anymore - the prices are crazy.
I can’t help but think that the overall decrease in younger people drinking may be somewhat tied to the increasingly steep price escalation at some restaurants. Restaurants still need to make their nut whether they are selling 100 bottles a week or 50. So if they are selling less of their highest P&L item, they need to make more.
For example I dined recently at Campagnola in NYC last week - despite being an upscale old fashioned Italian joint, it has a somewhat of a limited wine list. I ordered a bottle of 2024 Valdicava RossoDM to go with my veal chop parm. It was a fine drink - $165 on the wine list. Now I am well aware that this is NYC but I think we can all agree that this is $45 bottle of wine in a store, and likely less at wholesale. Factoring in 20% tip, you are looking at almost 4.5x retail.
So for some of us who like to go out and order a bottle it seems like we are picking up the slack in the restaurant P&L. Either way, corkage for me is an absolute assuming a restaurant allows such and the fees are reasonable (yes I interpret a $100 corkage fee as No Corkage Allowed!)
I had a customer once stop in on a Friday night after going to a restaurant and having a glass of Chardonnay that she liked. She wanted to know if I could get it for her.
I said it looked like it, but I would want to confirm with the distributor Monday morning, and then I would call her.
She paid $20 for the glass. I sold her a case at $14.95 per bottle! I did not do poorly with that mark up.
And to add a bit, it is a “on-premise wine” a domestic winery works with the distributor to help prevent it from getting on retail shelves, in order make sure the restaurants can mark it up further without retail price comparisons. They make a separate line of the wines that noone know exists, and then they do not market it to retailers, but market it heavily to on-premise locations.
I think that is the narrative, but I think it is actually happening in reverse. I think the younger generation isn’t drinking as much, in part, because the wine is absurdly expensive. The restaurant is the gateway to wine consumption, and this whole on-premise/ off-premise thing in NY and many places is destroying the wine industry because the younger generation isn’t getting a chance to try those exciting wines in the first place.
On one other note. Sadly 2024 Valdicava RdM is no longer a $45 retailer wine. The wholesale price in NY is slightly higher than $45 before buying in quantity, after which it comes down slightly below. It has been painful to see the increase on wines from Montalcino.