Wine: Liguid gold

Mark-up of up to 400 per cent on restaurant wines is all about profit margins, purchasing power and storage space. Photo / Carolyn Robertson

How much is a main course in a restaurant? You know that, right? At a basic cafe you might get away for $22 with veges thrown in; at a decent place it will be $28 and up and that side of beans you're sharing will set you back another $6; at the French Cafe, a main of anything meaty or fishy is $42 - make that $52 when the "steamed vegetables, lemon oil" is added and don't tell me it's not worth every cent.

You get what you pay for when you're eating out and when you do the maths - the cost of the ingredients, the chef's skill, a nice room to eat in and being waited on - you don't begrudge the money if it's good.

But can I get you anything to drink? That's more problematic. The Cloudy Bay chardonnay, perhaps, at $80 the bottle?

It's the same price for a Mt Difficulty pinot noir. Perhaps something more ... ahem, inexpensive? The Kumeu River pinot gris at $55. There's no doubt that a bottle of wine will quickly blow a hole in the dining budget.

These prices, taken from the wine list of an upper-mid-range Ponsonby Rd restaurant, are pretty representative. But a quick online search will confirm that at a wine shop, those two $80 bottles can be had for little over $40, and the Kumeu River for barely $25.

What is this? A 100 per cent markup and more (often much, much more) for pulling a cork - or, more likely, twisting a screw cap - and washing a couple of glasses? Are these licences to sell liquor or licences to print money?

Raise the subject of wine prices with a restaurateur and he'll be bellowing "Overheads!" before you can get the corkscrew out of your pocket.

Mandy Lusk, the proprietor of Vivace in High St and the newly opened Ragu in Pt Chev, points out that her annual wage bill in the former is a million bucks and rent about $150,000.

It's hard to cover those costs out of the few dollars' profit Vivace might make on a couple of tapas - though it's worth adding that Lusk's wine prices are actually very reasonable.

The implication is that the profits on wine sales cross-subsidise the losses (or at least the tiny margins) on food sales. But isn't it taking things a bit far when a wine that sells for $12 in a supermarket is on the list of an ordinary restaurant at $48?

Chris Upton, whose O'Connell St Bistro regularly picks up industry awards for its wine list, explains that supermarkets buy by the pallet-load, getting prices that a restaurateur can only dream of. (If a good special has been cleaned out at the supermarket, chances are that the neighbourhood bistro has snapped it all up.)

Across the industry, markups vary wildly. My sample included a very basic Ponsonby cafe where they sell only basic quaffers at about $7 a glass or $30 a bottle - a 200 per cent markup on the supermarket price. The owner of one of the city's classiest joints said he multiplies the GST-inclusive price by 2.5, "but I am aware of places round the Viaduct, for example, where they are charging 300 or 400 per cent".

Restaurants are certainly sensitive to the perception that they are price-gouging on wine, which is why you won't find most of the labels on the better lists at your local wine shop; it suits them to make prices hard to compare.

The owner of that basic Ponsonby cafe says she is often approached by wine merchants suggesting she stock unfamiliar wines that she could charge more on.

But any restaurant that wants to offer a decent list has to also consider storage. Simon Gault, whose Nourish Group includes Euro and Jervois Steak House, says that most restaurants maximise the front-of-house space - which is where they make money - and limit space in back rooms.

"Restaurants physically cannot hold any real volume of wine stock. Even case buys are rare for many, so deliveries are usually daily and quantities are small ... which drives costs up and margins down."