Banquet Wine

Restaurants and banquet halls love large gatherings. They often have open bars and to go with the open bars, their charges for alcoholic beverages are often quite exorbitant. And, frankly, they like nothing better than the wine drinkers. More so than with other alcoholic beverages, they are able to move their bad wines at good wine prices.

Really? How does that happen?

There are a few brands that you can see over and over at functions like this. Typically, they have something in common with a more famous brand. But, these are the mass-produced wines from out of the way vineyards that a restaurant or banquet hall can put out there as the same thing as the top tier wine whose name it sounds like. 

But, and there is a big but there, they don't resemble each other. They're not produced from grapes from the same vineyards, perhaps not even the same regions. They're not produced using the same exacting techniques. And, they don't taste anything remotely like the wine they are labeled to resemble.

Take a wine I was almost served the other night at a gathering, but not a wedding or similar function where the hosts often have more control. I looked at the wines being offered. One had a very similar name as a far more famous wine. In the past, I have always eschewed this label, but I asked for a taste. It was just as bad as I had remembered.

So, what's going on? 

The flagship wine of the highly regarded estate is year over year one of the finest to come out of Napa Valley. Produced from grapes grown in the famed To Kalon Vineyard, this wine is consistently rated in the mid-to-high 90s by everybody who is anybody and retails for somewhere around $150. It's really good, ageworthy, and worth the price to sophisticated wine drinkers with a fat wallet.

The supposedly comparable Cabernet is made from grapes from the famous Yolo County. Yes, there is a real Yolo County and it does not mean you only live once. Land is inexpensive there. Grapes are grown fairly wildly. Everything is machine harvested. In fact, everything is machine everything.

I looked online. I, that's me and not a wholesale buyer, can get a bottle for $4.97. I expect that a banquet hall can get it for between $2 and $3 ... per bottle. But, if you look at the name of this wine, you might mistake it for that $150 wine.

Then there is the pricing. While I don't know what the cost of a bottle was at this particular function, I've seen it at another function. $20 ... per bottle. That's somewhere between a 550% and 900% markup. And the wine drinks just like freshly drained motor oil.

What's the message? If you're ordering for a banquet, stay away from names that sound like high end wines. And, if you are drinking at a banquet, avoid the hangover and stay even further away from them.