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The German language, God bless it, famously has a word for everything. One of my favourites describes a person who obsesses over the least important facet of a problem. He or she is the Korinthenkacker - literally the raisin-shitter.

Look at online discussion of the wine industry and its current woes, and the odds are 1:1 that you'll soon be seeing accusations - implied or explicit - that restaurant pricing is a significant issue. The people expressing these views are Korinthenkackers

Let's put this in context. In most markets, a maximum of 15-20% of wine is consumed out of the home. Of this, around half may be drunk in bars and cafes. In the US, a maximum of around 12% of wine - by volume - is drunk in restaurants. This wine is disproportionately consumed by the same people (usually the ones who talk about it). The vast majority of wine drinkers almost never imbibe it in restaurants. Most of what they enjoy is 'industrially-produced' (and subject to similar accusations by the same people who blame restaurants), and purchased in self-service stores.

I was brought up in the restaurant business and, while I dislike paying exorbitant prices for a bottle of wine as much as anyone else, I sympathise with many establishments' struggles to make ends meet. And I feel some resentment at the price coffee bar chains charge for cups of warm milk that have had a passing acquaintance with some ground coffee.

Overpriced latte

A typical, well run coffee bar makes nearly twice as much pre-tax profit as a similarly managed full-service restaurant.

Logically, reducing the margin on bottles and glasses of red and white might mean increasing the price or shrinking the portion size or cheapening the ingredient cost of everything else we all consume in a restaurant. Especially, at a time when GLP-1 use seems set to reduce the number of restaurant customers.

As any restaurateur will tell you, they need to generate a certain number of dollars/pounds/euros per chair per week, in order to pay their often considerable fixed costs.

Slashing the price of restaurant wine by half across the world, would, of course, make a lot of well-heeled wine drinkers very happy - until they discover how many of their favourite restaurants have gone out of business. According to a US National Restaurant Association survey, over two in five - 42% - of operators in that market were 'not profitable' in 2025. Up from 39% the previous year. In Germany, 2025 analysis by Creditreform says over a third of hospitality businesses were loss making. Over 2,900 entered insolvency during 2025.

I'm sure there are plenty of experts who'll pile in to describe how restaurants can run more profitable wine programes without gouging their customers, and I'm also pretty sure this advice will usually involve slashing the size of the inventory, and the exciting ranges that many wine-loving customers so appreciate.

Indeed, that, plus an increase in the number of temprarily-listed wines-of the week/month would be part of my prescription.

I now live in Bordeaux, where very decent glasses of wine cost around €8-9. Around a third of the US price when you include the tax and tip, neither of which apply in France. But even with restaurants and bars offering wines at these 'giveaway' prices (with oysters at €1/$1.15 each in one case), wine consumption is still falling.

Each restaurant, like each wine business is an individual case, and no modus operandi will apply to all of them. But two things are certain:

Restaurants are not going to find it easy to remain solvent while keeping wine drinkers and non wine drinkers happy

And whatever they do, is not going to solve the very real problems of the wine industry as a whole.

Because, when all's said and done, they're only raisins.