Today is the 30th anniversary of the opening of the first Bristol Bar & Grille on Bardstown Road, and the local bistro will celebrate by offering its patrons a substantial "gift" in the form of significantly reduced wine prices for the next 12 months, owner and founder Doug Gossman announced at a luncheon news conference today.
Gossman and Bristol-Downtown general manager and wine guy (and forumite) Scott Harper outlined the program, which I'll describe briefly here and in more detail in my <i>30 Second Wine Advisor</i> E-letter tomorrow, which I'll link here.
Basically, virtually all restaurants in Louisville and across the US turn wine into a profit center by marking up significantly bottles for sale, typically charging three to four times their wholesale price for wine, which works out to your paying about twice as much for a bottle of wine in a restaurant as you would for the same wine in a wine shop.
Now, Harper said, they'll set the markup so you'll pay only the equivalent of wine-shop retail for any bottle on the list at any of the four Bristol properties. The effect of this, for example, is that one of the Bristol's top wines, Heidsieck Champagne, will drop from $57 a bottle to about $33. Trevor Jones "Virgin" Australian Chardonnay, $31 on the old list, is now $19. The sought-after Cakebread Chardonnay, which sells around $70 at many Louisville eateries, now goes on the Bristol's list at $38.
Harper said the changes affect about 40 wines by the glass and 60 by the bottle on the "regular" list and more on the fancy "reserve" list; wine prices on the new list will be almost entirely in the teens and $20s range.
Gossman said he'll commit only to one year, but if the new approach pays off in additional wine and food sales, he would love to extend it. "I hope this will draw attention to the egregious amounts that some restaurants mark up wine," he said. "If this draws attention to that and pulls prices down, good."