Putting paid to silly prices

So what's your New Year resolution? Lower mark-ups on wine? Let's make 2004 the year of the modest mark-up. No more silly pricing, no more schonky house wine - then I wouldn't have to schlep all the way down to Devon to drink decent wine without breaking the bank (to Nick Borst-Smith's Nobody Inn, in Doddiscombsleigh, where Cloudy Bay is on offer for £16 a bottle).

I hear you - you're just trying to make a decent buck. Thing is, too many of you are doing more than that. We're talking plain old greed here - it's a sorry fact that slapping high mark-ups on wine is an easy way of dulling the pain of high overheads. But you've been rumbled - by the wine press, who are devoting many column inches to this snowballing scourge, and by the punters, who are becoming increasingly tuned in to the real cost of wine.

So let's hear it for Accor and its 630-strong Mercure chain of hotels, which has just celebrated 30 years of modest wine mark-ups. At Mercure's London City Bankside hotel restaurant, the Loft, customers regularly roll up for a burger and a bottle of posh Burgundy. Mercure slaps on a flat £8 a bottle mark-up, regardless of the cost price of the wine, so the higher up the list you go, the better value the wine.

"Mercure wants to make fine wines more accessible so guests can enjoy fine cuisine with a complementary accompaniment without having to worry about paying a high price," says Liz Lewis, at the Accor press office.

The bottle in question is a 1999 Chambolle-Musigny from Louis Jadot for £32, which can be found on nearby restaurant lists for double the price. "Yes, our mark-up policy has helped us win customers," the hotel's general manager Shane Parker confirms. And you've got to hand it to them. With the kind of restaurant competition they've got, the chain hotel's restaurant is buzzing most days.

The Burgundy can be found on Mercure's 13-bin, all-French Grands Vins wine list, which is put together every year by a 100-strong panel of tasters in Paris, and includes 1999 Château Bouscaut Pessac-L‚ognan at £24.50 and 1999 Chassagne-Montrachet from Ropiteau at £26.

There's a regular wine list, too, offered with similar (and the odd even lower) mark-ups, totalling 31 wines in all, with 14 offered by the glass. This list is a mixture of group purchasing and in-house buying, pulling in wines from all over the globe.

Shorts

Pheasant wine

After a gruelling (read filling and rather sozzled) final held in London recently, Federico Bruschetta won the Wine International Sommelier Challenge 2003. Bruschetta, formerly of the Neal Street restaurant, London, and now operating a wine company called Passione Vino, had to pitch his sommelier's wits against runners-up Julien Audard of Le Coq d'Argent, London, Roberto della Pietra of Roussillon, London, Sebastiano Ingaliso of the Goring Hotel, London, and Rhys Moult of the Forth Floor at Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh. The task? To choose a conventional and unconventional wine to go with roast pheasant with Puy lentils ( à la John Burton Race). Unconventional wines submitted included a Sangiovese from Australia, a Pol Roger Ros‚ Champagne and a Pinot Noir from New Zealand, as well as the white 1999 Gravner Breg Bianco chosen by Bruschetta.

Limited edition malts

Diageo has launched its third issue of single malt Special Releases - limited editions of rare and unusual bottlings from long-since closed distilleries and names still in production. Included are a Brora 30-year-old, at £175, a Port Ellen 24-year-old, at £110, and a Glen Elgin 32-year-old at £310, plus a few bottles of Glenury Royal 50-year-old distilled in the Coronation year of 1953, at a cool £950. "Diageo will go on doing this long into the future," Premium Malts marketing director Nick Morgan promises.

Kiwi promise

Head to the Galleria at the Chelsea Village hotel on Tuesday 20 January for the New Zealand Winegrowers annual trade tasting. The event promises wines from more than 70 producers, winemakers galore, plus a seminar on New Zealand Riesling and a varietal focus on Riesling, Merlot and Merlot blends. New Zealand exports have enjoyed an increase of 18% in volume and 14% in value over the past 12 months, with the UK continuing to be its most important market, accounting for 45% of total wine exports, while plantings are up 12.3% on the previous year. For more information, contact New Zealand Winegrowers on 020 7973 8079.

Baltic beer

Estonians adore their beer, and now we can enjoy it too, with the UK launch of A Le Coq Premium Extra lager from the Finnish-owned Tartu Brewery. A Le Coq was the name of the former leading Estonian brewery, its era ending with Estonia's occupation by the vodka-swilling Soviet Union in 1940. Available through Allied Continental on 0870 0112677.