I was curious how wine pros, retailers who sell wine for a living, navigate restaurant wine lists. After speaking with a sampling of area wine merchants, I came away with a handful of techniques to use when ordering wine at restaurants.
The retailers I spoke with were Mitchell Pressman of the Chesapeake Wine Co. in Canton, Jay Miller of Bin 604 at Inner Harbor East, Rick Breza of Mills Fine Wine & Spirits in Annapolis, Craig Salemi of the Wine Underground in Hampden and Lee Grandes of Wells Discount Liquors in Cedarcroft.
This being a town known for its frugality, right away I asked about wine prices in restaurants. The wine merchants acknowledged that when they scan a restaurant wine list, in the back of their minds they see the wholesale prices of these wines. Restaurants mark up their wines, sometimes several times above the wholesale price, as a way of covering the cost of doing business.
The rest of us do a version of this calculation when we spot a familiar wine at double the retail cost on a restaurant wine list. Getting worked up over wine markup could interfere with your enjoyment of a night out on the town.
One way to cope with this issue, the wine guys said, is to go ahead and do the math, but keep the matter in perspective.
"If there is a $20 wine on the list that you know cost $5 but is still the best buy, then pick the wine and don't worry about what anybody is making on it," said Pressman. "If that is what a decent restaurant operator has to do to stay open," he said, then accept it as part of life and enjoy the evening.
Knowing the retail price of wine also can help you spot relative bargains on the wine list, places where the markup is smaller, said Miller. Sometimes, he said, the more expensive the wines, the less the markup.
The wine guys also said customers shouldn't be shy about telling a restaurant waiter or sommelier how much they want to spend on the wine. This information, along with the food you order, helps the waiter by narrowing the field of selections, they said.
"Don't be worried about what other people might think," Miller advised. "Say what you want to spend and ask for recommendations in that price range."
On the food front, the wine guys had several suggestions of how to pick a wine in a situation when she is having fish and he is having red meat.
One solution: Order a bottle of rose. Once regarded as a sweet, girly wine drunk only in hot weather, dry roses are now excellent companions for many dishes.
