restaurant wine lists

[Ed Hamilton]

When you see a wine on a restaurant wine list, that isn't available in stores, since many wines are only sold in restaurants,

how much influence does the price have in your decision?

[MartyL]

Virtually any wine that is supposedly sold only to restaurants makes its way to retailers and consumers via auction and the grey market. A good resource for checking current pricing, both at retail and at auction, is www.winesearcher.com.

For me, the mark-up is an important factor in determining whether I want to order the wine. There is only so much of my income I can spend on wine and I don't like the idea of a large portion of it going to pay for things priced at a multiple of the fair market price. If I can, I bring my own.

[mogsob]

There is no one wine I need to have in my lifetime. I like to try new wines, but generally try to find the best value on the list. Often, that leads me to the Rhone or Alsalce or the Languedoc. Sometimes Australia, sometimes a good Russian River Pinot. Umbrian wines are also usually good value.

I like to stay in the $30 to $80 range, depending on the restaurant and the wine, but in the end it is a judgment call.

[britcook]

If you're asking about a wine that is new to me, whether it be a new producer from a known area, a new area or a new grape/blend then price is a key factor. Because the mark-up on restaurant wines varies from almost reasonable to totally outrageous I tend not to experiment there, especially if it tends to the outrageous end. In the lower mark-up arena then I might be tempted if it looks comparable to something I know at around my usual price point, but temptation drops as the price rises.

Maybe it ought to be a different discussion but I find that for wine to accompany food there is a limit to how much the pairing will improve with "better" wine, the interaction of the food may well mask the finer points of a "quality" wine. Who wants to spend two or three times (or more) retail on a wine you might not fully appreciate. There are usually plenty of decent wines admirably suited to food at the lower to middle end of the list, so why waste money?