Drinking wine in restaurants

[Wilfrid]

Most of us drink wine with appropriate restaurant meals, I suppose, and will continue to do so. One is conscious, however, of serious downsides. One is the elevated cost - in the United States at least - and there may not be much we can do about that because of restaurant economics. Another drawback, of which I'm increasingly conscious, is that few restaurants offer more than a handful of wines with any significant bottle age. Indeed, even quite expensive bottles of Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone wines, which appear on lists, seem far too young to drink.

Could you comment on how much we should worry about the second problem, please; and to what extent is it mitigated by drinking "New World" wines, which often seem to be made for younger drinking?

P.S. "Quench" was a good show - let's see more of you on TV.

[Andreawine]

To your P.S., I have a new show starting on Fine Living Network in June - yay!

I think wine markups are ridiculous. I don't buy that they are necessary for restaurant economics - if you sell 1 bottle at a 70% gross margin, it's not as good as selling 10 at a 33% gross margin. But those high prices do deter sales as much as that, if not more.

As far as no wines with bottle age, I think there are plenty of pleasurable options that don't need bottle age to be at peak, but that is a matter of taste - if you prefer to drink old wines, it is a problem. Restaurants (and many people) just can't do long-term wine storage. Cheers!