Avenue Vine

Cutler is a veteran winemaker who teamed with other fun-loving Sonoma County wine professionals in 1986 to form the Wine Patrol, whose goal has been to remind the frequently self-obsessed wine trade that the first role of wine is to enhance the gathering of food and friends. They've had fun doing it.

The group's most notorious stunt was to hijack the Napa Valley Wine Train, all in good humor but not without a point: Lighten up, folks. It's just wine.

In recent years, the Wine Patrol has been lying low, but Cutler began to call his 60 or so compatriots out of hiding when he came up against one wine list too many that tried to take unfair advantage of its captive clientele, principally by failing to offer any attractive wines at less than $30 a bottle. Not all diners can afford to spend $40 or $50 for a bottle of wine, the low end for good stuff in too many restaurants, argues Cutler.

Early on in its history, says Cutler, the Wine Patrol agreed to speak out whenever it ran across a "wine crime," and the prices restaurants tend to charge for wines nowadays fall somewhere between misdemeanor and felony.

Restaurateurs, he's convinced, not only alienate guests with their wine pricing, but they hurt themselves: If they offered more bargains, he reasons, they'd end up selling more wine.

Cutler, incidentally, doesn't stand to profit by persuading restaurateurs to add more attractively priced wines to their cellars. After 29 years in the business, he's still making wine, though he's spending more time these days on other matters, from the philanthropic (helping rebuild New Orleans one house at a time) to the entrepreneurial (promoting a rock concert in a Hawaiian volcano).

With business partner Rusty Staub, the former baseball great, Cutler makes wine under the cult brand Relentless Vineyards, sold almost exclusively by subscription. "The wine I make is not available for under $30. There's no way for me to make money here," says Cutler.

He's eager to see more lower-priced wines in restaurants in part for selfish reasons - they're what he can afford, and he likes to discover value wines that deliver surprising interest.

Restaurateurs, he points out, generally price their wines 2 1/2 to three times what they pay for them. Thus, if they pay $20 for a bottle of wine, it's apt to land on their list at $50 to $60. The winery that made the wine, he adds, likely realizes only a $12 return on the bottle, even though it may have done everything from growing the grapes to designing the label.

"The wineries make enough profit selling that bottle for $12 to stay in business and grow. The restaurant wants to make $40 for that same bottle just to open it for you and pour it into a glass. That's a wine crime," says Cutler.

The Wine Patrol wants to take a positive approach to righting this old wrong. Toward that end, it has created the Wine Patrol Approved List (WinePAL) to recognize restaurants abiding by the group's standards:

* The wine list should have at least one wine under $30 in each category; ideally, at least 10 percent of the wines on the list should be under $30.

* Corkage should be $10 or less per bottle; ideally, no corkage fee should be levied, but if it is, it should be waived for each bottle also ordered from the list.

* The name of the person responsible for the restaurant's wine list should be on the list, just as the name of the chef generally is on the menu.

"If someone is doing a great job, we want to know about them. Secondly, we want to know who is making these lists none of us can buy from; we want to know who to blame," says Cutler.

* When a restaurant gets a good deal on a wine, the savings should be passed on to diners.

Curiously, the program doesn't address the one area where diners face the most fiscal abuse in making their wine-buying decision - wines by the glass.

Cutler says he recognizes that restaurateurs generally base the price of a single glass of wine on what they pay for the entire bottle, and that the issue needs to be debated. But he isn't out to persuade restaurateurs to revamp their entire wine strategy. At the outset, he's more eager to see more invitingly priced wines on wine lists, including wines by the glass.

In time, the Wine Patrol likely will come up with other criteria. "I can't address everything at once," says Cutler.

He's also planning to convene a panel of fellow winemakers to taste wines that sell for $8 to $12 wholesale. "When we find really good ones, we'll post them on our Web site so restaurateurs can consider adding them to their list," says Cutler. Restaurateurs should be able to list wines in that range for less than $30 each.

Restaurants that claim to meet the group's initial criteria will be visited by Wine Patrol agents who will assess the pricing of the list, the wine service, the selection and so forth. If the restaurant passes muster, the Wine Patrol will issue a "colorful" WinePAL certificate. Restaurateurs aren't being charged to apply for the certification.

To help persuade restaurateurs to ponder the equity of their wine lists, the Wine Patrol is recruiting deputies who will be given silver bullets - business cards, actually - to leave behind when they eat at a restaurant that offers only wines with dear prices.

The cards say that while the diners enjoyed the food, service and ambience of the restaurant, they doubt they will return because of the high wine prices. The cards also direct the restaurant to the Wine Patrol's Web site, www.winepatrol.com, where they can learn about the WinePAL program.

That's also where people can sign on to be a Wine Patrol deputy. It costs $5, the fee to cover the cost of two identity cards and 18 of the business cards to leave at restaurants.

So far, the Wine Patrol has certified two restaurants - Captain Charlie's Reef Grill in Juno Beach, Fla., and Mendocino Cafe in Mendocino. The program, however, only got under way on St. Patrick's Day.

Source: “Wine Patrol's 'agents' target high prices at restaurants,” Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee, March 29, 2006