Comments on: Beijing bubbly: Champagne really sucks…

By: Gary Price

Gary Price — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:47:34 +0000

JB,

Greetings from your friend in Bei Bing Ma Si.

If you want some exceptional “non-headache inducing” bubly, come over to my place for some Moscato D’Asti. We sell in-store for RMB400/bottle and in an equal fight can beat the #$%@ out of any frog juice. There’s no bling association that the beamer/LV/Lafitte crowd looks for, but we are not offering any. “In Vino Veritas” is our motto.

Gary

By: Mr. Miyagi

Mr. Miyagi — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:07:15 +0000

@ Mike B:

do you think only having MUMM and Moet on a Champagne list (at inflated prices) benefits consumers in any way, shape or form?

Please elaborate on your opinion because it certainly doesn’t seem to make sense from a CONSUMER advocacy perspective.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:18:13 +0000

@ ali baba,

superb point. that means we are paying triple or more for mass-market champagne that might be old and that carries all the costs of marketing, sponsorships, and so on that got it into the bar, restaurant, or club in the first place.

cheers, boyce

By: admin

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:16:52 +0000

@ mike,

you are talking about wine and food, while i am talking specifically about mass-market champagne, about brands that use cash, volume deals, and other incentives in what seems to me an effort to monopolize the bubbly list. this limits consumer choice and i believe this has led to artificially high prices. as a consumer, i don’t like this – i would like to see more choice and better value, and i think one possible step toward this is letting fellow consumers know how bubbly buying works in beijing.

cheers, boyce

By: admin

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:02:40 +0000

@ wine blog,

the exchange rate is about RMB6.8 for USD1, so that RMB700 bottle of Champagne is about USD100.

Cheers, jim

By: admin

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:01:18 +0000

@ tomaz,

thanks for the heads up. i’ve heard of a few other similar champagne deals in beijing and will put together a list.

cheers, jim

By: ali baba

ali baba — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:35:34 +0000

There is one other aspect of champagne in Beijing that was not mentioned, the age of NV champagne. Most of the NV Brut champagne sold in Beijing is old. NV champagne has an average life of 3 years from bottling. If you look at the production/import dates on the bottles from the well known to not so well known most are from 2006 or earlier. When you pop the cork and pour they are gold color and flabby. You have to really pick and choose carefully and check the dates on the bottle.

By: Mike B

Mike B — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:45:44 +0000

Food and Beverage markup is typically a percentage (multiple) of cost, usually around 300%. So a 250 RMB bottle of bubbly will indeed sell for around 750. And that 100 RMB burger has about 30 RMB worth of ingredients.

So if a bottle of wine is sold for 700 but costs just 200, don’t think of it as 500 RMB in markup, but a 3.5x markup. That’s because a 1500 bottle that actually cost 1000 has the same 500 RMB difference, but only sold at 1.5x cost so is actually a reasonable value.

Lowering the markup might NOT make good business sense in the long run. A healthy margin means everything to a bar / restaurant. If 700 RMB champagnes are too much for the clientele, then offer less expensive (but still good quality) bottles, instead of just offering the same bottles at a lower markup.

Squeezing margins isn’t going to help anyone. If you’re making less profit per bottle then you either have to sell more bottles or skimp cost elsewhere (lowering service quality, use cheaper food ingredients, force more turnover, etc.)

Generally that’s a losing strategy. You can’t run a steakhouse by pricing them like burgers. You’re better of closing the steakhouse and opening a burger joint.

By: wine blog

wine blog — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:27:52 +0000

I would help if you translated those numbers into dollars so the American readers such as I could get an idea of the actually cost you’re talking about when talking about these Champagnes. A bottle Moet White Star is around $40-50 here in the states, depending on where you purchase it from.

By: tomaz Hladnik

tomaz Hladnik — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:29:02 +0000

Agree completely,
And what you are trying has been done in Enoteca from the very begining.
We sell Champagne that is (contrary to other wines in the bar) not imported by us and with reasonable mark-up on the purchasing price we can sell it at 530RMB per bottle. We’re talking about Champagne Taittinger Brut. This goes without saying that the mark-up on the wines we import by ourselves is much lower.