Brian,
I’m not disagreeing with you, but was a late Gen Xer it was the same for us too. We had less money and increased costs of living vs our parents…
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I, too, am a late Gen Xer, Geoff. And I agree with you that the problems experienced by Millenials are also being experienced by late Gen Xers.
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Is legal pot impacting any of this?
Relatively, with marijuana, it don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long time.
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I look at this and think the restaurant model for pricing wine and other alcohol is broken. Restaurants have counted on alcohol sales for their profits and are gouging customers who buy wine worse and worse over time. A lot of people are rejecting this by not buying wine in restaurants apparently. Restaurants that cannot figure out ways to make profits with more reasonable wine prices are going to go out of business.
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My guess is that not really. It’s not that alcohol consumption is down, it’s that wine consumption is down cause the younger group is drinking more beer and cocktails rather than wine.
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Just wanted to point out that we have another thread from yesterday that is practically on the same topic right now:
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Howard, how so? I’m pretty sure overall wine markups (percentage) at restaurants have not significantly changed over the past decade. The $$ has increased but primarily due to the cost of wine increasing.
I blame American fondness for sweetened breakfast cereals, fast food loaded with sugar, salt, and fat, high fructose/sugar carbonated beverages, bourbon, and other culinary atrocities for ruining the American palate. The American wine industry, with its focus on uber-ripe fruit, oak, high abv, glossy and polished wines that are without soul, place, or often resembling wine (rather than the barrel that it was raised in), made an existing problem worse.
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For round figures, it used to be a $10.00 bottle at wholesale cost was $15 at retail and $30 on premise at a restaurant. That $10 bottle whole sale cost was $10 per glass for a wine by the glass. Not sure if that this holds true as it was 20 years ago…
I am probably one of the few people on WB that are in their twenties. Among my friends anything over $13 is leaning towards the “more” expensive category. However their are some friends that are into wine (through education or growing up with wine) and are willing to spend significantly more. I think a lot of the issues with younger people less interested in wine stem from wine education and snobbery. From my experience, a lot of people near my age prefer sweet wine (not the wonderful sweet dessert wines) and the only experience with “dry” wine has been an off-putting tannic young cab from California.
One interesting observation is that even when trying to get people to try dry to off-dry Riesling is a struggle. From my experiences, the vast majority of people my age don’t even know dry Riesling exists. As previous berserkers have mentioned a lot of this issue stems from the cost versus value proposition.
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Has not been my sense at restaurants.
I think you’re totally right.
I also think people’s tastes change as you age. I know I have gone from more sweet food and drink preferences to savory across the board starting in my mid or late 30s. I used to be a Starbucks mocha and espresso martini person at 30 and fast forward to 40 I was straight cappuccino and scotch person.
Preferences combined with disposable income definitely play major roles.
That’s probably not far off from today by ratio.
Say, Wholesale is now $20, retail is $30, restaurant is $60 and by the glass is $15. That’s about what I’m seeing at restaurants.
The same holds true for beer. It used to be $3-$5 for a good beer at a restaurant, and at least in San Diego it’s now $6-$10 for a good beer at a restaurant
You guys are doing a much better job picking restaurants than I am. If I can find a single bottle on a list a 2.5x retail I feel like I found the hidden gem. Typical is 3x retail and bad is 3.5x-4x retail. Even I (a long-time avid wine drinker) don’t drink wine at restaurants anymore because I feel so abused doing so.
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source for this bold claim?
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Yup, occasionally I’ll buy wine in a restaurant but it’s very rare compared to how frequently I drink wine at home.
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Corkage at restaurants has become a joke.
On a positive note last week I went to Belgium Bistro in San Clemente and the corkage was $30. What? But they give you a $30 gift card…
Brilliant.
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$30 corkage sure beats having to pay $200 for a too-young $50-at-retail bottle. These days, $30 corkage is the new $20. I can’t remember the last time I paid less than $25 for corkage.
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I’m ok with $20-$30 corkage for a bottle. There’s definitely a hard cost to the restaurant for the glasses (breakage over time), washing, serving etc. so I don’t mind that. Besides if I bring a $60-$80 bottle of wine I’m paying under $100 and getting a MUCH better wine.
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Here’s a simple question - are current 20-30 year olds as influenced by what their parents drink as they might have been 20-30 years ago?