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In Hong Kong, you can buy a burger at McDonald's for as little as 20 Hong Kong dollars (US$2.60). Or, for $HK118, you can get an Australian Wagyu burger at BLT Burger. Premium ingredients, plush seating and a celebrity chef - in BLT's case Laurent Tourondel - all account for the price disparity.
What about wine?
Take a bottle of Château Margaux 1983. At Gold restaurant, it costs HK$10,000. At Caprice, the same wine goes for almost twice as much-HK$19,500. L'Atélier de Joël Robuchon has it on its wine list for HK$14,000. At Cépage, the same wine, same vintage, is HK$10,610.
'There's no set standard. Every sommelier prices his wines differently from the next,' says Gon Leung, the sommelier of Cépage.
So what factors contribute to these large variances in price for the same bottle of wine?
Mark-ups
'Mark-ups vary in the industry between 50% to 200%,' says Benoît Allauzen, sommelier for L'Atélier de Joël Robuchon. The more expensive the wine, he adds, the lower the mark up tends to be. (A HK$1,000 bottle may be easily marked up to HK$2,000, or 200%. But a bottle purchased for HK$10,000 won't be marked up to HK$20,000.)
Harlan Goldstein, chef and owner of Gold, compiled his own wine list. He says his philosophy on pricing is 'random.' 'I'll just tack on another HK$1,000 or HK$2,000 to the price that I purchased it for.'
Mr. Leung, the Cépage sommelier, declined to give specifics on his mark up on the Château Margaux, but he says his total wine costs-the average costs for all wines in Cépage-amount to 45% to 50% of the prices listed on the menu.
Apparently, the more independent the restaurant, the more flexibility there is in the pricing of wine, explains Toby Marion, the owner of the Hong Kong-based wine supply company Golden Gate Wines. 'They don't have financial controllers breathing down their necks, like a hotel would.'
Timing
Typically, when a restaurant buys bottles, prices are set for that batch on the wine list, and they don't change until the inventory is gone.
'We only update the price of wines once they require replacement or replenishment,' says Mr. Allauzen of L'Atélier. The restaurant sells 140 bottles a week, but it doesn't specifically keep track of how many premium bottles, such as a Château Margaux, sell each week. By comparison, Gold sells 40 to 55 bottles of wine a week, and about one or two come from the list of more exclusive wines, including the Château Margaux.
But wine prices tend to fall and rise for different reasons, which can affect the price-setting process.
In recent years, for instance, the price of premium wines has risen dramatically. A bottle of 2008 Château Lafite Rothschild sold for about US$260 in 2009, and cost more than US$1,400 in 2010.
In theory then, restaurants that were building their wine cellars before Bordeaux fever set in can offer better prices to their customers, says Mr. Goldstein. He purchased his bottles of Château Margaux 1983 about five years ago for roughly HK$8,000 each.
But Mr. Marion, the wine supplier, says timing is 'not so simple' because wine costs haven't been going up steadily. In 2008, for instance, when Hong Kong eliminated the 80% wine tax, prices dropped dramatically. And the global economic crisis drove prices down another 40% world-wide. 'This means a lot of the older inventory actually costs more,' Mr. Marion says.
At Caprice, sommelier Sébastien Allano says that its bottles of Château Margaux 1983 were purchased five years ago, before the abolition of the wine tax, and the inventory has yet to sell out. '1983 was considered a 'hard vintage,''-the year in general was not a great vintage for most wines-'so not a lot people know it,' Mr. Allano says. 'It won't move as quickly as a famous vintage like 1995 or 1996.' At Caprice, roughly 25 bottles of wine are sold a day.
Quantity
The more cases of a particular kind of wine you buy, the lower the purchase price. And having a relationship with a wine estate can work in the restaurant's favor as well.
'If you have a relationship with a wine producer, you may get a larger allotment of en primeur wines [when wines are purchased before they are bottled],' says Caprice's Mr. Allano.
Caprice buys for the entire Four Seasons Hong Kong hotel, so it tends to get a good price. Cépage restaurant seems small-it seats just 60 people at any given time-but it has huge purchasing power because it is part of a Singapore-based parent company called Les Amis Group that also runs wine-distribution company Vinum. And then there's L'Atélier de Joël Rubochon, which probably gets a good price because the more than 10 Robuchon restaurants world-wide usually purchase wines together.
Finally, other things matter, too, Mr. Allano says. Where a wine is purchased from (straight from the wine estate or through a broker), what the storage conditions have been and how it is transported all can influence the price at the end, he adds.
At the end of the day, of course, most wine drinkers understand that restaurants charge high prices. A simple search on Google or www.winesearcher.com can turn up several street prices of a 750-milliliter Château Margaux 1983-US$600 to US$755-that are far lower than what any of the restaurants are charging.
What should price-conscious guests do? Wine supplier Mr. Marion suggests: 'Bring your own bottle and pay the corkage.'
參考譯文：
在香港，只要花20港幣（2.60美元）就能在麥當勞買一個漢堡。而在BLT漢堡餐廳(BLT Burger)點上一份澳洲和牛(Australian Wagyu)漢堡則需要花118港幣：這里有一流的食材、豪華的座椅、以及出自名廚的料理——BLT由國際名廚勞倫特•圖倫戴爾(Laurent Tourondel)開辦——一切都讓人感覺到物有所值。
那么，葡萄酒的情況如何呢？
以一款瑪歌莊園(Château Margaux)1983年份葡萄酒為例。在Gold餐廳，一瓶這樣的葡萄酒售價10,000港幣，而在Caprice餐廳，同樣一瓶酒的價格就幾乎翻了一番，達到19,500港幣，在L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon餐廳的酒單上，它的價格是14,000港幣，而在Cepage餐廳，同樣年份的同樣一款酒售價10,610港幣。
Cepage餐廳的侍酒師梁志恒(Gon Leung)說，“在這方面沒有統一的標準，每位侍酒師設定的價格都會有所不同。”
那么，是什么因素造成同一款葡萄酒會有如此大的價格差異呢？
餐廳加價
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon餐廳的侍酒師伯努瓦•阿羅贊(Benoit Allauzen)說，“餐飲業對于葡萄酒的加價在50%到200%之間。”他補充說，葡萄酒的原價越高，加價幅度一般越小。（一瓶原價1,000港幣的葡萄酒在餐廳多半會標到2,000港幣，翻上一番；但一瓶原價10,000港幣的葡萄酒不會標到20,000港幣。）
Gold餐廳的老板及主廚哈蘭•戈德斯坦(Harlan Goldstein)親自編寫葡萄酒單。他說自己在葡萄酒定價上比較“隨意”，“只是在葡萄酒的進價上再加個一兩千港幣而已。”
Cepage餐廳的梁志恒謝絕透露給瑪歌莊園的這款葡萄酒加了多少價，但他表示餐廳所有葡萄酒的平均成本是酒單所列價格的45%到50%左右。
香港葡萄酒供應商金門酒業(Golden Gate Wines)的老板托尼•馬里恩(Toby Marion)說，很顯然，一家餐廳的獨立性越強，對于葡萄酒的定價自由度就越高，“餐廳不像酒店那樣，有財務總監來制定各方面的標準。”
采購時間
一般來說，餐廳采購一批葡萄酒后，酒單上的價格就固定下來了，在庫存賣完前不會改變售價。
L'Atelier餐廳的阿羅贊說，“我們只是在換貨或者補貨時才會改變價格。”這家餐廳每周賣出140瓶葡萄酒，但并不跟蹤瑪歌莊園這樣的高價葡萄酒的每周銷售情況。Gold餐廳每周售出40到55瓶葡萄酒，其中包括一兩瓶瑪歌莊園這樣的精品佳釀。
不過葡萄酒的市場價格會有起伏漲落，對餐廳的定價會有影響。
舉例而言，近年來，精品葡萄酒的價格大幅上升。一瓶2008年份的拉菲(Chateau Lafite Rothschild)在2009年的售價是260美元，而2010年的價格就超過了1,400美元。
戈德斯坦說，從理論上而言，那些在波爾多葡萄酒熱潮興起前就把酒窖裝滿的餐廳能為顧客提供更優惠的價格。他大約五年前采購了一批1983年份的瑪歌莊園葡萄酒，每瓶只要8,000港幣。
金門酒業的馬里恩說，把握葡萄酒的采購時機“沒那么簡單”，因為葡萄酒進貨價格并不是穩步上升的。比如說2008年，香港削減了80%的葡萄酒進口關稅，導致葡萄酒價格大幅下跌；而全球經濟危機又讓全球葡萄酒的價格進一步縮水40%。馬里恩說，“這意味著很多早期庫存的葡萄酒進貨價格比時價要貴。”
Caprice餐廳的侍酒師塞班斯蒂安•阿蘭諾(Sebastien Allano)說，該餐廳保存的1983年份瑪歌莊園葡萄酒是在五年前葡萄酒關稅削減前采購的，這批庫存到目前還沒有賣完。阿蘭諾說，“1983年被視為一個葡萄酒的‘小年’——大多數葡萄酒的品質都不算太好，因此這個年份并不知名。1983年份葡萄酒賣出的速度不如1995年或1996年的知名年份那么快。”Caprice餐廳每天約售出25瓶葡萄酒。
采購數量
對特定某款葡萄酒來說，采購的數量越多，價格就越低。同樣，與酒莊保持良好的關系也有利于降低餐廳的葡萄酒采購價格。
Caprice餐廳的阿蘭諾說，“如果你跟釀酒商有良好的關系，就能訂到更多的期酒（即在裝瓶前就訂購的葡萄酒）。”
Caprice餐廳為其所在的香港四季酒店(Four Seasons Hong Kong)集中采購葡萄酒，因此能拿到不錯的價格。Cepage餐廳規模不大——只能接待60位顧客——但擁有巨大的采購議價能力，因為它隸屬于新加坡Les Amis Group餐廳集團，后者還經營有一家Vinum葡萄酒分銷公司。L'Atelier de Joel Rubochon餐廳拿到的進貨價格也不錯，因為全球有超過10家Robuchon餐廳，而它們的葡萄酒一般都是統一采購的。
阿蘭諾說，葡萄酒售價不一還有其它一些因素。如果葡萄酒是從酒莊或經紀商那里直接買來的，那么儲存條件及運輸情況會最終影響到價格。
當然，大多數葡萄酒愛好者都知道餐廳里的酒價格是偏高的。在谷歌(Google)或www.winesearcher.com網站搜索一下750毫升1983年份瑪歌莊園葡萄酒，就能搜到市場價格在600到755美元之間，比任何餐廳的售價都要低得多。
對價格很在意的顧客該怎么做呢？金門酒業的馬里恩建議，“自己帶酒去餐廳，付開瓶費就行了。”
