It’s official: Cheap wine is irrelevant, part III

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

rose wine
“Is there anything better than $100 rose?”

If you thought the first two cheap wine is irrelevant posts showed how screwed up wine is, wait until you read this one

Just in time for the blog’s 15th annual rose extravaganza next week – 12 “must have” roses for this summer, from a group of leading “restaurant professionals.” And not one of them costs less than $46 on a restaurant wine list, and two cost $100 or more.

For rose? Rose??? Rose?????

Yet there it is, from one of the wine business’ most important trade websites: These are roses “that sommeliers and beverage directors across the U.S. clamor for. … what they’re stocking up on as rosé season kicks off once again.”

Obviously, retail pricing wouldn’t be nearly as ridiculous; those that list for about $50 would cost about $35 at your local wine shop. But it’s not like $35 isn’t ridiculous, either. How many of us are going to pay $35 for a bottle of rose?

In this, one more piece of evidence – after this and this — that the wine business doesn’t much care about those of us who aren’t the one percent. Consider: I can get a bottle of actual Champagne from a good producer at one of Dallas’ leading high-end restaurants for $90. I love rose, but if I’m going to spend that much money, I’ll buy the bubbly. Who wouldn’t?

So what’s going on here? Two things, I think:

First, restaurants are restaurants, and if the pandemic didn’t change restaurant wine pricing, nothing will. I’m supposed to talk to someone who did a study about the pandemic’s effect on restaurant wine this week, and I’ll be sure to ask about these prices. They seem counter-intuitive if you’re trying to lure diners back.

Second, snobbery. It pains me to write this, after all the years I’ve spent trying to de-snobify wine. But that seems to be where we are in the second decade of the 21st century. It’s hip and cool or whatever to put a $100 rose on a wine list, and those of who don’t understand that it’s hip and cool or whatever don’t matter.

Photo: “Boyfriend and girlfriend drinking wine closeup. Pink colors for Valentine day” by shixart1985 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.