Pricing
How to price wine by the glass
Price the 125 ml and 175 ml from true cost, not from habit. Pour cost, waste, and why by-the-glass is often the highest-margin wine engine in a UK 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 glass is "whatever the pub down the road 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 cash margin (operators often talk about 15 to 20% pour cost on BTG, which is 80 to 85% GP on that line if the rest of the maths is clean). Treat those bands as a check, not as a religion. Your waste, your measures, your VAT, 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, VAT logic included (wine-list pricing, VAT).
- The measures you actually sell. Still wine by the glass is sold in 125 ml, 175 ml or multiples of those (Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988), and the licensing conditions require the 125 ml to be available and shown to the guest. A 750 ml bottle is six 125 ml, or four 175 ml with a splash left.
- How many honest pours you get after the bottom, the oxygen, and the overpour your shift actually does. Use the marked glass or the measure, not the eye.
- Selling price of each size. What is left in pounds, 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 glass. If that glass is costed like a share of a prestige bottle, they go back to a pint and you tell a story about generation decline.
Price the 125 ml as a real option, not as a punishment for not ordering the 175 ml. A small glass that is obviously worse value tells the guest the list is a game.
House glass is a special case: price house wine.
One % for the whole drinks report will strangle this
If finance wants a single drinks GP number, glasses can look "expensive" on % and still be the profit. Argue in cash margin 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 (VAT included) on one screen. The base version is free.
About the author
Marco Azzari
Founder of Wine CFO · Wine List Engineer for UK restaurants
I help restaurants, hotels and bars across the UK 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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