Wine by the Glass

[Varmint]

I had commented about the somewhat unusual wine by the glass option at Raleigh's Enoteca Vin, where you can get 1.5, 3 and 5 ounce pours. Tommy hadn't seen such a program before, and I was wondering if this is as uncommon as it sounds.

Vin's Website

Be sure to click on their wine by the glass and by the bottle menus. The bottle menus have separate pages for each geographical region.

[tommy]

i'd like to see more of this. much much more of this.

[beans]

I think my neighbourhood wine bar does this too. I like that approach. Should optimize liquor cost and hopefully that wine bar can offer a large selection at a reasonably fair price.

[hollywood]

I trust that the pour will always be with us.

[vengroff]

Blue Ribbon Bakery in NYC offers three pour sizes, and is much closer to home for Tommy. I would estimate the pours are about 4, 6, and 8 oz.

[KatieLoeb]

I absolutely love this idea and have often thought of opening a restaurant that does this (or maybe just 3 and 5 oz. pours) along with a selection of really good food that comes in small (read appetizer) and large (read "share me sized") plates. Encourage customers to design their own meals and match wines to every course. If there were such a place in Philadelphia, I'd be there as often as I could afford it.

Vengroff, are you sure the pours at Blue Ribbon are 4, 6 and 8 ounces??!!?? Approaching this from the beverage cost control aspect, that 8 oz. pour seems bloody huge (that's 1/3 of a 750 ml bottle dude! ) it seems really cost-ineffective for the restaurant, only in that it's hard to get a customer to pop say $15.00 for one glass. Maybe they're just using those big assed wine stems you can do flip turns in and it just seems that way? Or maybe they're using really tiny glasses and getting the "fun house mirror" effect? I am curious what they'd charge for an 8 oz. glass of wine. It also becomes necessary then to put in separate keys into the sales system (i.e. Taste Pinot Noir, 3 oz. glass Pinot Noir, Full Glass Pinot Noir) to track sales and check for over pouring and/or theft (which is basically the end result of what I do all day long). It's hard enough to figure out how much of each flavor vodka got used each week without adding more equations into the mix. I realize not every restaurant has a person that performs my particular job function, but hopefully somehow weekly inventories and sales are compared and someone's checking to make sure the store isn't being given away.

We figured out that one heavy handed bartender could cost us about $10,000/year. For restaurants doing big volume in wine by the glass sales (and one could presume that a place like this would do that just out of the sheer novelty of it), you can imagine the potential for hemmorhaging potential profits from every orifice, so to speak.

[tommy]

Vengroff, are you sure the pours at Blue Ribbon are 4, 6 and 8 ounces??!!??  Approaching this from the beverage cost control aspect, that 8 oz. pour seems bloody huge (that's 1/3 of a 750 ml bottle dude!  ) it seems really cost-ineffective for the restaurant, only in that it's hard to get a customer to pop say $15.00 for one glass.

all of batali's restaurants do it, so it's not unprecedented. of course i have no idea if Blue Ribbon does it too, but i'm guessing they are regular pours of the 6 ounce variety. anyone know for sure?

[weka]

There is a wine/cafe/restaurant near the main tram stop on Leidseplein in Amsterdam, The Netherlands that lets you pick bottles and pour as much as you like. You get charged for what you drink. They measure, with a ruler, what remains in the bottle and do a quick subtraction. No need to worry about number of ounces there. Have never found an equivalent place with good wine here in the US. If memory serves me correctly, the place in Amsterdam might be called CafeCox.

- Weka

[vengroff]

I'm not 100% sure about the sizes; 8 was really just a guess, because the large pour seems very large indeed. Perhaps it's only 7, but I doubt it's less than that.

[balex]

In Geneva, and in most of Switzerland I think, they have a good system where you just say how much you want in decilitresl, and they give it to you. So you can have 1,2, 5 or whatever. This is the perfect system. (7.5 dl in a bottle for imperialists). They don't always have carafes in every size.

[StephenT]

In the UK, wines by the glass are usually sold in 175ml or 250ml sizes. Due to the law I assume. Having more than one large glass at lunch can sometimes impede work in the afternoon.

[Carema]

No need to worry about number of ounces there.  Have never found an equivalent place with good wine here in the US.  If memory serves me correctly, the place in Amsterdam might be called CafeCox.

Although I haven't been back to godforsaken Seattle in almost 3 years, Mario Batali's Dad had a sausage joint there (Salumeria {sp}) -incredibly wonderful and perfect, everything house cured- just phenomenol. He did the old bottle on the table, mark what you've drunk system. I do not know if they are still doing it. It was truly wonderful. The only reason to visit that city of horribleness- that and the restuarant Le Pichet on 1st avenue. Sigh.....................