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Gaucho Grill wine list leaves bad taste in mouth

Tonight I am drinking Terrazas de los Andes Reserva Malbec 2006.  A very nice wine and worth every penny of the £8.50 I paid Costco for it.

This is one of the staples of the Gaucho Grill wine list, but when average wine markups in the UK are between 100 and 200% (i.e. double to three times the wholesale price) how come Gaucho thinks it can charge £37.50, a 341% uplift, and that is against the RETAIL price.  Is this a new British and Commonwealth record?

On the terrace (or balcony) - Malbec

Another fine mess is demonstrated by Susana Balbo Malbec, regularly on sale at the Wine Society at £11.95 per bottle but by the time Gaucho has added their enormous 330% mark up, the poor steak lover has to fork out 5,150 hard earned pennies.

I don’t know how they got away with it in the good economy.  Surely this is about as sustainable as rain forest firewood in the current financial climate?

The steaks are awesome (and possibly chargrilled over rain forest firewood) but steer clear of the wine…..or stick to the house brew which, whilst over-priced, won’t leave quite the same bad taste in your mouth.

Of course, the Gaucho is entitled to charge whatever it likes for its wines, but there are many other steakhouses that are producing similar quality meals (take Blackhouse Grills for example) and I am always tempted to spend much more on a bottle of wine if I feel I am getting value for money.

So come on Gaucho, how about cutting us poor starving beefeaters some slack and selling wine even a northerner can afford?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 11:31 pm and is filed under rip off restaurant mark-ups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Gaucho Grill wine list leaves bad taste in mouth”

  1. w bARTLETT Says:
    January 30th, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    I AGREE WITH YOU WENT THERE LAST NIGHT. COULDNT FIND A WINE UNDER £40 AND I HADE A STEAK WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE 10.5OZ WHICH WAS NEARER 7OZ. EXPENSIVE AND NOT WORTH IT

  2. Confessions of a Wino » Blog Archive » Barbecoa, City of London Says:
    May 2nd, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    […] is almost exactly the norm for London and way off the eye-watering gross margins demanded of you by Gaucho Grills, for […]

  3. Alastair Bathgate Says:
    July 6th, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    At a recent visit to the Leeds branch of this steak chain, I noticed it is not just the wine list that is a rip-off. Desserts are hugely expensive and coffee is more expensive that top end London restos. I guess the model here is to offer good quality steaks at reasonable prices and then make up margins everywhere else.

    The Ryanair of restaurants.

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