Gaucho Grill wine rip-off rages on
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008I’ve written before about the rip-off wine mark-ups at the Gaucho Grill (branches in London and Manchester).
Although the wine is outrageously priced, I do pop in occasionally for a top class steak. And so last week saw me in the Manchester restaurant. I thought it would be interesting to revisit the wine prices.
In my post of March 2007, I benchmarked a bottle of Susana Balbo Malbec (excellent stuff) at an eye watering mark-up of 250%. The bottle, available at the time from the Wine Society at £11.95, was marked up to £42.
Time to check out the latest prices. I checked the Wine Society website and, fair play, it is in stock and still £11.95. Inflation rate = 0%.
When I checked out the Gaucho Grill wine list, the price has inflated by a Graf Zeppelinistic 22.6% to £51.50. This now makes the mark-up (against retail price, and one assumes that Gaucho can buy much cheaper) a groin kicking 331%. By far the highest I have ever seen in any restaurant.
The matured meat may be superb, but I would rather cut my pupils out with a serrated steak knife, than pay these prices.
By all means eat at the Gaucho, but when it comes to wine, just say “NO”.
Stumble It!