Not so long ago I saw a bottle of Irancy Burgundy Red on the menu of a London restaurant priced at £35 a bottle; naturally I have declined to order it. Why was that? I can buy the self-same wine for about 7 Eur a bottle in a French supermarket.
Irancy is exceptionally good wine at a reasonable price but hardly anyone in the UK knows of its existence . Its production is small and the vineyards are tucked away in a rather remote area near Auxerre in the Northern most part of the Burgundy region. Obviously wine lovers in Britain are being taken for a ride on this one. It pays to have a little bit of knowledge.
When I tackled the wine waiter or the "Sommelier" about this price discrepancy he shrugged his shoulders in true Gallic style even though he was not French. He gave the diplomatic answer that "he did not set the price policy " and no doubt he had been trained to say this.
The price of wine is often marked up considerably more than the wholesale price justifies in the UK, in both restaurants and some wine merchants. A little bit of knowledge helps and what better use for a tablet computer or smart phone could there be than to look up the price of a wine on Wine Searcher.
Restaurants should really only mark up wine by a maximum of 2 and 1/2 times the retail price. Most restaurants give you a fair deal.
I quite often visit the Planet Of The Grapes in the City of London, their retail wines are a little bit more expensive than I would normally pay. I am prepared to accept this gladly because the staff really know about wine and care for it and I follow their advice. I am getting a genuine service for that little bit extra.
Of course wine in Britain will be more expensive than in California, France, Italy or Spain but quite often the extra mark up is not justified. You might be better off to stick to the house wine. The restaurants will then have to reduce their prices.
If you pay more than £30 for a bottle of wine in Britain you deserve to get something really special.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/irancy
If you pay a visit to Northern Burgundy you can find Christophe Ferrari who is one of the top producers of Irancy. This is exceptionally good wine at a very reasonable price; around 9 Eur for a bottle. Why not buy some of this wine direct and enjoy a bottle of it at home with a good meal as it goes superbly with game birds.
http://www.irancy-ferrari.com/vin_bourgogne_irancy_chablis.php?id=47&id_ap=17
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