How to Price Wine by the Glass and by the Bottle

To price wine at a restaurant, multiply your bottle cost by a markup of roughly 2.5x to 3.5x for bottles, then price glasses so that one bottle of glasses brings in 3x to 4x what you paid. Most restaurants aim for a wine cost of 28% to 38% of the selling price. Cheap bottles carry a higher markup percentage, premium bottles a lower one, and glass pours must cover the wine you lose to spillage, tastings, and the last half-glass that nobody orders.

Start with your target wine cost percentage

Wine is one of your most profitable categories, but only if you set a target before you set a price. A common range is 30% to 35% cost on bottles and 25% to 30% on glasses. If your bottle costs $12 and your target cost is 33%, the menu price is $12 divided by 0.33, or about $36.

Notice that the target percentage creeps up as the bottle gets more expensive. Guests will pay $36 for a $12 bottle, but a $200 price tag on an $80 bottle stops most of them. Pricing every bottle at the same multiple is the most common wine-list mistake. For the wider logic behind these targets, see How to Price for a Target Profit Margin.

Price the glass pour

A standard 750 ml bottle holds about 25 ounces. With a 5-ounce pour you get five glasses; a 6-ounce pour gives you four. Use fewer glasses than the math allows, because waste is real.

The glass pricing formula

1. Take your bottle cost and divide by the realistic number of pours (use 4.5 for a 5 oz pour to allow for waste).
2. This is your cost per glass.
3. Divide by your target glass cost (for example 0.27).
4. Round to a clean menu number.

A $12 bottle costs $2.67 per glass at 4.5 pours. Divide by 0.27 and you get about $9.88, so price it at $10. That glass alone returns $45 from a bottle that cost $12, nearly 4x. Our guide to Calculating Cost Per Ounce and Per Serving explains this math for any liquid you pour.

Make the glass-to-bottle relationship work

Guests compare the two prices. If a glass is $10 and a bottle is $36, the bottle equals 3.6 glasses, which feels like a bargain for a table of two or more. That nudges groups toward bottles, which sell faster and cut open-bottle waste. If the bottle is more than four glasses' worth, glass sales win and bottles stall.

• By-the-glass list: keep it to 6-10 wines, so every bottle turns within a few days.
• Bottle list: offer a few entry points around $30-$40, a middle tier, and a short reserve list.
• Anchor price: one high-priced bottle makes the middle look reasonable.

Protect your margin from waste

Open wine loses quality after three to five days, depending on the wine and your preservation method. Track what you pour away. A bottle that sells only two glasses a week is costing you more than its price suggests. Use a waste log, like the one in How to Track Waste With a Waste Log, to see how much wine is lost each month.

Takeaway: Price wine with a sliding markup, not a flat one. Charge about 3.5x on entry-level bottles, taper on premium ones, and price glasses so one bottle of pours returns 3x to 4x its cost.

Fit wine into your beverage strategy

Wine pricing works best alongside the rest of your drink menu. Review How to Price Drinks and Cocktails and Beverage Menu Strategy for Higher Checks so your wine, cocktail, and beer prices support one another instead of competing.

Keep your numbers current in the POS

Wine costs change with every distributor price sheet. Update bottle costs quarterly and re-check your margins. Build each pour size as its own item or modifier in your POS so reports show glasses and bottles separately. Cobblestone POS lets you set up bottle and glass sizes as modifiers and track pour sales by item, and it is free for independent restaurants with no monthly fee, versus the $470+ per month a system like Toast can cost. Pull a monthly wine report to see which bottles earn their shelf space and which ones to drop.

Use the free calculator linked above to test your own list. Enter bottle cost, pour size, and target percentage, and it returns the bottle price, glass price, and profit per bottle in seconds.