Give the people what they want!! Good wine at a good price.

What are the bar managers of America thinking? The reality is that we as wine consumers frequently have to settle for poor wine choices from many bar managers who are not really doing their job well. They should have two customers to serve. Their first customer is the owner of the restaurant or hotel. They should provide them with a good return on their investment on the wine that they serve. If they try hard enough they can easily provide them with a very very good return and still satisfy their ultimate customer: the wine consumer.

When one attends a Christmas party at a very prominent hotel in Boston, one would think that the wine they would be serving might be Good. One might hope it would even be Very Good. So when the wine that I was served was a house level (to remain nameless to protect the guilty) Cabernet and Chardonnay, I knew that I would be disappointed. These wines retail for about $13 per bottle. Assuming the hotel buys this wine in bulk, it costs the very prominent hotel about $8 per bottle. They are charging the event’s host about $45 per bottle. Since they are clearly making a huge profit off of this party, they could at least make a small effort to satisfy the guests of the host by providing a wine that would deliver at least a Good or Very Good glass of wine. They could still provide a satisfactory return to the owners of the very prominent hotel. Below are a couple of examples of wine that the bar managers could have chosen to satisfy both their internal and external customers.

The very prominent hotel could have served the Very Good 2004 Marquis Phillips Shiraz, and it would have cost them about $10 per bottle. That same hotel could have also served the 2004 Greg Norman Chardonnay which would have cost them about $9 per bottle and is also Very Good.

Both wines are much better than what the very prominent hotel had served and would have generated a similar profit, if not more of a profit. I could have found several other examples with a little more work. As you can see with a little more effort, the very prominent hotel could have served much better wine and made a considerable profit! They could have also sold more wine, had very satisfied customers, and made more money on volume alone. The very prominent hotel would have benefited greatly from a profit standpoint and the guests would have been delighted. Because of the poor wine choices available to me that evening, I chose to drink Very Good bottled water instead of bad wine. The main point here is that there is Very Good inexpensive wine on the market and the bar managers of America should take note and serve it!

Cheers,
Ken

Wine Cabernet Chardonnay Wine Consumer Bar Managers Christmas Party