Why Don't More Restaurants Sell Bottles of Wine From Their List?

Oakland's A Côté has been retailing wines off its list since 2001.

​A few days ago, a stray note on A Côté Restaurant's Web site piqued my interest. "Can't find the wines from our list in local wine shops?" the note read. "Please inquire about purchases of individual bottles or larger orders of your favorite wines, or sign up for our monthly mixed cases, all at retail prices." A few exploratory messages to local wine writers asking about other restaurants with the same policy yielded SOMA's Terroir, which markets itself as a wine bar and retail store, as well as Ottimista Enoteca in Cow Hollow. There may be a few more restaurants offering retail wine sales out there, but it's hardly common practice.

A Côté wine buyer John Berlin says the restaurant has offered its wines for sale since 2001 ― a small side business, really, and an extension of his wine buying approach. "People who love our wine list come here for the off-the-beaten-path stuff," he says, referring to all the Slovenian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Greek wines he brings in. "We tend to focus on more traditionally made wines, not ones made in the international style, and there are a lot of fun, odd, unique, wines on our list."

For his most devoted customers, Berlin puts together mixed cases of wines, selected to fit a particular theme ― right now it's rosés and other spring-friendly wines; over the holidays he assembled sparkling wines. He charges around $200 for the (12 bottle) cases, and individual bottles range in price from $8 to $30.

More and more restaurants are specializing in the kind of offbeat wines that Berlin loves ― bottles that are hard or impossible to find elsewhere. So why don't more sommeliers supplement their on-premise wine sales with retail?

After all, it's perfectly legal. According to John Carr, public information officer for the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, "A restaurant with a beer and wine license ... may sell a bottle of wine to a consumer, who then may take it off the premises for consumption." 

It's also a great way to publicize the wine director's tastes and scouting abilities and give customers new ways to interact with the restaurant, possibly bringing them in more often to drink.

The sticking point may be markup: Many restaurants mark up wine and spirits far above the prices retail stores charge, considering beverages the profit center that helps them make up for high labor or food costs. By offering every bottle he stocks for sale at 50 percent off the wine list price ― Ottimista sells bottles for 30 percent off ― Berlin is being explicit about his markup and gives customers the opportunity to compare his prices against brick-and-mortar wine shops and Web sites.