The Hunter Valley Wine Show Rip Off Continues

I walked down to Balmoral today, and accidentally into the Hunter Valley wine show, where individual companies put up booths for tasting.

This is the deal: you pay $7 for a wine glass you would not even have your cat drink from. Then you buy tasting tickets for $3.50 each. Let's assume you buy four tickets. Most wines for tasting cost $20 to $25 per bottle. You pay the same amount for four tastes at 60ml each. That is you pay an amount for 240ml which would normally buy you a 750ml bottle. From the winery's point of view: it would get 12 serves out of a bottle, equals $42 per bottle, not a bad mark-up.

Now there were some $40-$50 per bottle wines, but you had to hand in two tickets for those. Let's say we used our tickets for two such tastes. That would be $10.50 per taste. Pretty steep, isn't it? From the winery's point of view a similar mark-up over retail: 12 times $7.

You might say, they had to drive there, bring equipment etc. But it is supposed to be marketing, right? I went home and enjoyed a beautiful Chardonnay at home.

What do you think?