It’s Hard to Make Money in Restaurants. These Wines Help.

• By WineBottleMag
• November 19, 2025
• Hard Money Restaurants Wines
• With 0 comments

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, aside, it seems everyone on the planet is walking a financial tightrope right now.

The cost of living has skyrocketed since the pandemic, and wages haven’t kept pace. Recent data from Bank of America Institute found that nearly a quarter of U.S. households are living paycheck to paycheck.

This obviously leaves less cash for dining and drinking out.

According to a recent report from YouGov, 37% of U.S. diners are eating out less than they did a year ago, with 82% noting that restaurant prices have increased in recent years. Only 28% believe restaurant prices are fair. 

But, just as diners are feeling the crunch, so are the industry pros who are running these increasingly expensive hospitality outlets—which are already squeaking by on notoriously thin margins (roughly 3% to 5% on average).

“Core costs for restaurants have increased for nearly everything, including rent, electric, gas, food, wages, insurance,” says Jill Weber, a professional archaeologist and founder of the Philadelphia-based restaurant group Sojourn Philly. “And this is affecting everyone, not just restaurants. People are spending a little less, particularly on luxuries. Eating out is a luxury.”

In an attempt to lessen the squeeze, savvy beverage directors are recalibrating their drinks programs to serve their own bottom lines while prioritizing guest’s palates. Here’s how.

The Case for Classics

There’s a reason there’s a woman in a little black dress glass sipping Chardonnay at seemingly every high-end drinking and eating establishment in the country. Classics become classics because they are widely palatable and popular. 

“Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay, especially well-crafted ones that may not be widely available, but aren’t super expensive, are the backbone of my list, and help pay for the wines I’m dying to introduce people to,” says Cheron Cowan, beverage director at Craft New York and a Wine Enthusiast writer at large. “I may pay $12 a bottle for these wines, and then I can charge $18 or $19 a glass, and they’ll sell quickly because they’re some of the lowest priced options we have, but the markup is significant.”

That larger-production but carefully crafted Sauvignon Blanc from California or France will pay for the old-vine Listán Blanco or other lesser-known grape that Cowan and her team are dying to introduce to guests.

“Most people haven’t heard of Listán Blanco, so I can’t charge what it actually deserves,” Cowan says. “But it’s part of my mission to showcase wines that may be unfamiliar to most people, but are deserving of the spotlight. So I mark up things that are great and I know will move, and mark my pet wines down slightly because I want guests to take the leap and try them.”

Weber takes a slightly different approach. 

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To offer a top-shelf Cava for a bargain basement price, for example, she hunts for unexpected deals to offset the—at first glance—lower margin. 

“We are able to get a very high quality Cava for a very low cost,” Weber explains. “But we sell it by the glass for $12, which is just pennies more than it costs us. But the experience value is high.”

Guests value the pleasure of drinking a well-made, convivial sparkling wine at such a reasonable price, Weber says, so that Cava has become one of the fastest movers on the list. Because it’s so popular and can be used in bubbly cocktails, it makes for low waste and has ended up delivering more of a margin than Weber anticipated, even if it isn’t approaching the highest margin on the list. 

To increase profits, however, Weber looks to out-of-vintage bottlings. One recent coup involved an out-of-vintage Australian Pinot Gris from the Yarra Valley for $9 a bottle, discounted from $21. 

“The distributor needed to move the bottles, and we benefit by purchasing a product we would not be able to normally offer by the glass,” Weber says, adding that they sold that particular wine for $14 a glass. 

Other restaurateurs focus on seeking out wines that clearly connect to their mission, style of food, and sense of place. 

Lucy De León, owner of Madrina Cocina Mexican in Downtown Portland, Oregon, offers a modern spin on Mexican cuisine, while celebrating Latina heritage through her food, drinks, and hospitality. 

“Our highest margin wine is a rosé made by Latina winemakers here in the Willamette Valley,” De León says, adding that they purchase it for less than $20 a bottle, and sell it by the glass for around $12. “The Cória Estates La Mona Rosé Bubbles is bright, versatile, and it pairs beautifully with our cuisine.”

It sells well by the glass. But, like Weber’s Cava, its versatility in cocktails, such as the house sangria, drives the profits up further.

Trend-Hitting Styles from Traditionally Affordable Areas

Versatility and waste reduction certainly helps with margins. But one of the main keys to hitting a desirable profit margin is finding a high quality-to-price-ratio (QPR). Cava has always been a great example, but drinks directors are now looking far and wide to deliver the flavor and experience guests want while churning a profit.

Northern Portugal’s Vinho Verde wine region is another great model. It delivers the naturally low-alcohol, zippy flavors many modern day drinkers are seeking. Because they’re so affordable, they also offer the ever-elusive QPR every sommelier seeks. 

Whereas most bottle markups hover between two to three times the purchase price, bottle markups for Vinho Verdes wines are typically around four times the price (a bottle that costs $12 will appear on the list at $48).

“Vinho Verdes wines are consistently high-margin,” says Max Goldberg, beverage director at The Peninsula Beverly Hills. “They offer unmatched freshness with moderate alcohol, and they consistently sell for a fraction of the cost of Albariños from slightly farther north in the Iberian Peninsula.”

This helps beef up the bottom line. 

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Buoyed by Bubbles 

And these kinds of deals go well beyond Portugal. Italian Prosecco is another style that is surging in popularity, both in restaurants and retail outlets, due to its affordable price point. Early last year, exports to the U.S. increased by 4.7% as sales of wine more generally lost their fizz. 

Part of Prosecco’s appeal for drinks directors, like many of the other wines already mentioned, is its versatility: it is equally popular by the glass, in cocktails like the Aperol Spritz, and as a brunchtime staple with juices in breakfast sippers like Mimosas and Bellinis. 

Torrey Grant, wine director at Leonetta and the newly minted Derby Club in New York, says that Prosecco is especially important with their “younger-skewing clientele at Leonetta. Our restaurant is upscale, but our core demographic is 23 to 35 years old.”

Grant didn’t want to share specific numbers on margins, but notes that “many people talk about a two to three times markup in wine pricing. This may be the norm for some, but we take a blended approach. If we can get something truly remarkable at a lower price, say less than $15 a bottle, we may use a higher markup.”

But in the end, Grant says, the wine has to be priced fairly enough for it to move.

“A wine that never leaves the shelf makes $0,” she says. “At the end of the day, one of the most important parts of my job is getting people to fall in love with wine as part of their meal experience, and I can’t do that if they don’t feel there is value in the wines we offer.”

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The post It’s Hard to Make Money in Restaurants. These Wines Help. appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

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