How to price wine by the glass

Written by Marco Azzari on 27 September 2026

By the glass is often the highest-margin wine engine in the house, and the one nobody prices on purpose. The glass is "whatever the place down the street charges," or the bottle price divided by a lucky number, plus a bit for waste that is really an insurance premium against a sloppy pour.

In many rooms a well-run glass sits in a pour-cost band that leaves a large gross profit (operators often talk about 18 to 25% pour cost on BTG, which is a 75 to 82% gross on that line if the rest of the maths is clean). The old rule of thumb, "the first glass pays for the bottle," lands in the same place: a $14 glass from a bottle that costs you $14, five 5 oz pours, is about 20%. Treat those bands as a check, not as a religion. Your waste, your ounces, your mix will move the result. The point is: price the glass from true cost, then run it as a program.

Cost the pour, not the bottle's vibe

1. True bottle cost, after the discounts you really get (wine-list pricing).
2. Actual pour size you sell (5 oz is the common standard, 6 oz in plenty of rooms; what the jigger or the line on the glass says, not what the bartender's wrist implies).
3. How many honest pours you get after the bottom, the oxygen, and the overpour your shift actually does. A 750 ml bottle is about five 5 oz pours, or four at 6 oz.
4. Menu price of the glass. What is left in dollars, not only in %.

If you cover sloppy pouring by inflating the price, you train the guest to think your glasses are a trap, and you still pour sloppy. Fix the pour. Do not buy insurance from the guest.

Do not use bottle markup on a glass

A bottle has one opening and a different social job. A glass is a low-commitment yes. Guests who will not "commit" to a bottle will still take a glass. If that glass is priced like a slice of a trophy bottle, they go back to a cocktail or a beer and you tell a story about Gen Z.

House glass is a special case: price house wine.

One % for the whole beverage report will strangle this

If finance wants a single beverage-cost number, glasses can look "expensive" on % and still be the profit. Argue in gross profit and mix, or someone will tell you to push bottles and the engine dies. Markup versus margin.

Operations (rotation, Coravin, not freezing the list for six months) live on how to run a by-the-glass program. Price and program are sister pages. Do both or you have a number with no motion.