Pricing
How to price wine by the glass
Price the calice from true cost, not from habit. Pour cost, waste, and why by-the-glass is often the highest-margin wine engine in an Italian room.
Written by Marco Azzari on
By the glass is often the highest-margin wine engine in the house, and the one nobody prices on purpose. The calice is "whatever the bar down the street charges," or the bottle price divided by a lucky number, plus a bit for waste that is really an insurance premium against a sloppy pour.
In many rooms a well-run glass sits in a pour-cost band that leaves a large contribution (operators often talk about 15 to 20% pour cost on BTG, which is an 80 to 85% gross on that line if the rest of the maths is clean). Treat those bands as a check, not as a religion. Your waste, your 125 ml or 150 ml, your IVA, your mix will move the result. The point is: price the glass from true cost, then run it as a programme.
Cost the pour, not the bottle's vibe
- True bottle cost, IVA logic included (wine-list pricing, IVA).
- Actual pour size you sell. The common calice is 125 ml, six to a bottle; 150 ml is also seen, five to a bottle. Use what the glass mark says, not what the producer's tasting glass implies.
- How many honest pours you get after the bottom, the oxygen, and the overpour your shift actually does.
- Selling price of the glass. What is left in euros, not only in %.
If you cover sloppy pouring by inflating the price, you train the guest to think your glasses are a trap, and you still pour sloppy. Fix the pour. Do not buy insurance from the guest.
Do not use bottle markup on a glass
A bottle has one opening and a different social job. A glass is a low-commitment yes. Guests who will not "commit" to a bottle will still take a calice at aperitivo or with a plate of pasta. If that glass is costed like a split of a prestige bottle, they go back to the spritz or the beer and you tell a story about generation decline.
House glass is a special case: price house wine.
One % for the whole beverage report will strangle this
If finance wants a single beverage-cost number, glasses can look "expensive" on % and still be the profit. Argue in contribution and mix, or someone will tell you to push bottles and the engine dies. Markup versus margin.
Operations (rotation, Coravin, not freezing the list for six months) live on how to run a by-the-glass programme. Price and programme are sister pages. Do both or you have a number with no motion.
If you want the numbers live, instead of in a spreadsheet you open twice a year, Cavekey puts by-the-glass, the list, inventory, and true cost (IVA included) on one screen. The base version is free.
About the author
Marco Azzari
Founder of Wine CFO · Wine List Engineer for restaurants in Italy
I help restaurants, hotels and bars in Italy earn more from the wine they already sell. I price lists wine by wine, cost by-the-glass programmes on their real yield, rebuild selections around the food menu, and rewrite lines so guests understand what they're ordering. Every Wine Profit Checkup goes across my desk personally.
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