Wine foolishness or greed? 6 June 2008

A tale of four restaurants and their winelists, told by determined BYO
winelover Melvyn Minnaar

How sweet a meal when you walk in with three special bottles of wine and a very friendly server says ‘no problem’. He takes with loving care the (real) champagne, the mature Cordoba Crescendo of a riveting vintage, and the Dornier Donatus, and the rest of the evening spins out like, well, one of the finest dinners.

The food is brilliant. The service and atmosphere spot-on. The brought-along wines (delicious) run out, and another bottle is ordered from a neat little list with very reasonable prices. For the three carried in, no more than R25 corkage per bottle is charged.

How unsweet the idea of going to a yuppie, talked-up hot-spot,when a surly telephone-answering person curtly informs you about the (tight) time-frame of the evening’s two seatings; and then – without missing a beat, when you huff a little, but decide to give it a try any way – tells you they charge R100 per bottle corkage.

Breathless in shock, you confirm nevertheless and consider a strategy. Lingering food and comfortable quantities of good wine are requirements for a good meal. The eatery being a hot-spot, it obviously boast a snazzy website. And so, together with the (expensive) menu, one can peruse the wine list in advance as well.

Following the outrageously-priced French bubblies (this is clearly bling territory), the least-expensive local sparkling wine is Graham Beck NV Brut; the shameless price R240. Being the home house-bubbly, we know it can be bought, by ordinary wine-shoppers, at about R80 a bottle.

A Fleur du Cap Sauvignon Blanc is marked on the cyber list at R110 – the cheapest white. (It’s about R35 at the supermarket.) Haut Cabrière’s easy-drinking Pinot-Chardonnay  is available at R160.

It takes a deep breath to quell indignation and telephone the little voice on the other side and cancel the booking instead of letting them sweat it out. Instead of revenge, ‘never-to-visit’ is the better option.

And then…

Another new place in Cape Town, equally talked-up, also requires a first visit and an assessment. At this hot-spot the corkage is not outrageous (R40), but announced only after the champagne, as applying to a single bottle per table. Needless to say, the wine list is not great in terms of selection and mark-ups. So no second bottle is ordered.

Service stutters and the food, highly praised by others, turns out, well, so-so. (Maybe we’re grumpy because of the wine attitude.) Another ‘maybe-not-again’ comment is noted by the well-paying company.

On the following evening, the group set out to another, different Green Point eatery, carting along a couple of cooler bags: fresh bottles bought in to try, taste or discard. An easy, sweet evening unfolds and the patron-chef is all too happy to sit down later, after grilling some soothing good grub, to try some of the carried-in wines as well. A humble corkage is added at random to the bill. 

 ***

The point of these tales is to remind unthinking restaurant hosts that they are misjudging the role wine pleasure plays in their set-ups. Charging outrageous corkage, offering unremarkable wines at silly prices, is not simply greed, but foolish.

Here’s the simply equation: charge a sensible fee and your guests will happily pay and probably drink plenty more. Rip them off and they’ll flee.

What also remains a ‘puzzlement’, is why wine producers, many who battle to make a decent profit, allows restaurateurs to get away with this. How good an image is it to see your wine offered at a ridiculous price?

* The Cape Town restaurants referred to, both visited and not-visited-again, are: The Foodbarn, Geisha Wok & Noodle Bar, Bizerca Bistro, and Sloppy Sam’s     

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