Paying the price to avoid the bottle

When 26-year-old Lisa Sullivan, a law student, meets friends at a restaurant, she orders a glass of wine — and sometimes a second one. And even if everyone is having the same sauvignon blanc or pinot noir, they never think of ordering the bottle and sharing it. A bottle seems too formal. They’re just sitting at the bar or eating small plates.

If Sullivan and her friends did order that bottle, they’d probably find themselves spending less. Wine is flowing at restaurants and bars, say restaurateurs, but it’s being poured one glass at a time. And drinking by singles is getting pricier. Where less than a decade ago, a glass of the house white or red might have set a diner back $4 or maybe $6, now even suburban restaurants start at $10 and climb to over $15 a glass. Some in the industry attribute this to the price of cocktails — the thinking is that wine should cost the same.

The rising prices don’t stop all the by-the-glass customers. At Vox Populi, a popular spot in Back Bay known for its martinis, a 6-ounce pour (an unusually x generous amount) of Alisa 2002 pinot grigio costs $8, which these days is reasonable. But the same wine ordered by the bottle is listed at $28 (for more than four glasses). Yet few care to do the math. Vox owner Joe Quattrocchi says, ‘‘Our wines by the glass sales are amazing, compared to bottle sales.’’

Vox’s list of wines by the glass is fairly short. Their martinis are all priced at $10; most glasses of wine are under $10. ‘‘There are places near here where prices are a lot less expensive,’’ Quattrocchi says, mentioning The Pour House and other bars along Boylston. He says that what’s important to customers is ‘‘the experience’’ — food, staff, and ambience — more than ‘‘the price of a drink.’’

At Marc Orfaly’s two restaurants, the glass versus bottle line is sharply drawn. At Pigalle in the Theater District, waiters are popping corks on bottles for customers; at Marco in the North End, mostly glasses are served. Pigalle’s diners are ordering full bottles that match the restaurant’s French cuisine. But at Marco, says the chef and owner, the place is family-style; customers are more likely to order by the glass. ‘‘It seems much more casual to be doing it by the glass even though you order three or four glasses,’’ he says. That perception outweighs price. ‘‘You can tell someone, ‘Pricewise you’d do better by the bottle,’ but they still order by the glass.’’

Part of the glass popularity has to do with better wines being offered now. ‘‘Restaurants have expanded their lists, partly out of customer requests,’’ says Stephen Malarick, a sales rep to restaurants for Martignetti Companies. ‘‘We’ve certainly seen wines by the glass getting more sophisticated.’’ Fewer and fewer restaurants offer just a house red, white, or rose, which are often poured from an 18-liter bag-in-a-box with a spigot. People are more sophisticated, too, he says. ‘‘A Grill 23 customer sitting at the bar wants a glass of wine, but he wants one that costs $14 to $16. Twelve or 15 years ago, you couldn’t have seen that.’’

You also wouldn’t have seen a restaurant specializing in wine. At the five-year-old Troquet near the Theater District, co-owner Chris Campbell specializes in unusual bottles, offering 47 wines by the glass, ‘‘all different in style,’’ he says. He prices competitively ‘‘so that it doesn’t scare people away.’’ But wines have gotten more expensive for him to buy, especially some from Europe (as the Euro rises in value and more middlemen are involved). His glass menu starts at $6.50 and goes up to $69 for Chateau d’Yquem, one of the world’s great wines. When Campbell started out in business in the 1980s in Detroit, where his parents had a restaurant, ‘‘wines by the glass were almost unheard of,’’ he says. Now ‘‘more people are willing to experiment a little.’’ He sees many tables of four where each person wants a different wine and then each will try another varietal for the next course.

Some restaurateurs make a big effort to offer many single selections, including Steve Johnson, owner of Rendezvous in Central Square. He’s also added carafes — about two-thirds of a bottle — as another ‘‘pathway to encourage people to explore.’’ And at Neptune Oysters in the North End, owner Jeff Nace says that customers in general are more wine savvy. Nace, who was a manager for years at Olives in Charlestown, finds that both eating and ordering wine have changed. ‘‘Back in the early days, people would have a drink, and then order a bottle of wine.’’ Menus now are more diverse, with a lot of small plates, he says, and people are more likely to share several small dishes rather than one big entree. And they want different glasses to match the food. ‘‘When I first worked at Olives, white zinfandel was the only rose. Now people want a rose from Abruzzo [2004 Cerasuolo Montepulciano d’Abruzzo] and know it and appreciate it.’’

So are restaurants making much more money if their customers order wines by the glass? Nace says not always. His current favorite, a Godello Bodegas Valdesil, which has characteristics like a more expensive Chablis and pairs well with oysters, is $9 a glass, $36 a bottle. Since he pours about four glasses from the bottle, he’s not making more on the glasses. ‘‘I’ve seen some menus in the city that are really high,’’ he says.

All of this depends on what the restaurant is paying for wines in the first place. Savvy wine buyers can offer bargains. Bruno Marini, the general manager at The Federalist, says ‘‘there are better values out there’’ if the restaurant’s buyer has good relationships with wineries. Right now, the Fed’s wine list features a $7 glass of Jackson Triggs sauvignon blanc from British Columbia, which Marini says is a ‘‘unique wine at a unique value. I don’t mark that bottle up that much at all.’’ He wants a varied list, and though some glasses may be well over $10, it helps the restaurant’s image to have wines at a lower price point.

Johnson of Rendezvous says that wine markup ranges from two and a half to three times the wholesale price. ‘‘A lot of restaurants use three as a starting point,’’ he says. Malarick, the Martignetti’s sales rep, says the standard is two and a half times the wholesale cost of the bottle. However, adds Malarick, when wine is poured by the glass, the standard markup sometimes goes out the window. Lower priced wines usually have the biggest markup.

The cocktail revival seems to have pushed up the cost of wines by the glass. ‘‘I’m shocked when I hear what people pay for cocktails,’’ Malarick says. As cocktails climb to $13 or more, it stands to reason that wines by the glass are beginning to average out at $10.

You have to wonder if one glass of wine is paying for the whole bottle. ‘‘There are a lot of reasons, sometimes excuses,’’ Malarick says, ‘‘why they charge what they do.’’ Waste is often cited as a reason, along with extra service and glassware. However, Malarick thinks that if wines aren’t turning over fast enough and thereby fading and losing their zip, it’s because ‘‘your program is too ambitious,’’ with too many wines. People rarely ‘‘refuse a glass of wine because it’s started to oxidize,’’ he says, but at double digit prices, he thinks they ought to.

Campbell of Troquet, who has worked as a wine consultant in the past, says he doesn’t serve wine from a bottle that’s been open more than 36 hours. The staff will drink the rest, or it will be used in cooking.

Several local restaurateurs say that at hotels, pricing is on another level. Nace of Neptune says that the service and glassware at a fine hotel drives a higher price.

But at functions, says Malarick, the price of wines is often three to even four times the wholesale cost. ‘‘Frankly sometimes I’m so distressed I’ll order a beer.’’ Or, he adds, ‘‘I’ll have water.’’