Oh dear, there are some mighty serious people out there - opportunity costs, etc... Some of the correspondence wouldn’t look out of place in a A Level Economics paper. I’ve spent the best part of a decade trying to get out of the wine trade (any offers please e-mail); the money is a joke, the benefits are worse & the hours are criminal, anyway that’s enough moaning. In response to the prior correspondence & staying in the economics vernacular, restaurants will charge as much as they can for wine, not to mention water, etc. irrespective of rationality &/or morality. Arguments about justification on the grounds of service, ambience, the cellar, simply miss the point completely. Lets take wine stock argument: cash tied -up in stock has to be paid for through mark-ups. 99% bullshit “ I’m afraid to say, only the top 1-2% of restaurants keep what could be remotely described as a cellar, & even then most of their stock will be held off premise & unpaid with their supplier/s. “Just in time” production isn’t just for auto manufactures! Furthermore, the vast majority of vino consumed -even at the top end of the restaurant spectrum- is house wine that by definition goes no nearer the cellar than the desert. In fact it’s even worse than that because not only does the restaurant operate a virtual cellar, it pays for it in a similarly ‘new economy’ fashion. You as the punter pay on the button; cash, cheque or credit card, the restaurant then has anywhere between a month to infinity to pay its supplier. So, instead to paying 300% plus mark-ups we should be paying less than retail prices! Especially as the trade price is at least 10% below the retail equivalent. Another of a my petty gripes is the piss poor standard of wine knowledge amongst restaurant staff in this country. Even or should that be especially at the top end of the spectrum, staff many of whom are paid to know what the hell their talking about, patently don’t. A friend who used to work in a senior wine capacity at Gleneagles Hotel, when it was a proper hotel not a bloody glorified timeshare country club, remarked that places for sommeliers competitions used to be over subscribed 3 or more to 1. This compares to a situation today where one was hard pushed to get a single member of staff to take part, even if paid time of & expenses are available. My own experience of running trade tastings in Scotland certainly bares this out. It is nigh on impossible to get “genuine” representatives from the trade to attend these functions. The reason - in their respective domains these guys can wing it, they might know jack shit but that’s a whole lot more that anyone else in their respective hotel/restaurant. Ignorant they may be, stupid they most certainly are not. The last thing their going to do is expose themselves “in public”. Those of their fraternity that exhibit a micron of knowledge above the norm can expect to be wined & dined in a spectacular fashion by eager suppliers (the slickest operators by far are the Champagne houses who also have the deepest pockets!) with much ego stroking & general arse licking the order of the day. They will then be asked to “consult” on wine lists, cellar selection, etc.... The dashing David Harvey, formerly of No.1 at the Balmoral, Edinburgh is a wonderful example of this phenomena - from humdrum sommelier to all singing, all dancing wine guru in 5 short years. Alternatively, step into any branch of Oddbins & talk to just about any member of staff whose been with the company for more that 2 years & you’ll find someone who definitely does know what their taking about. Sadly for them this knowledge doesn't translate into anything more than minimum wage rates & a non-existent career path & no I don’t work for the buggers, not anymore thank Christ. Well, that’s way more bile than I originally intended to spill! I shall continue at a later date on similar vein: cretinous wine critics; vanity wine operations; under brained & overpaid tossers in the wine trade, etc.... Thank you for your indulgence.
