Pour Cost
Pour cost is the cost of the wine in a serving expressed as a percentage of its selling price, a core profitability metric for beverage programs.
What pour cost is
Pour cost is the ratio of what a wine costs you to what you sell it for, expressed as a percentage. If a glass of wine costs 4 to pour and sells for 16, the pour cost is 25%. It is the beverage equivalent of food cost and one of the clearest signals of how profitably a wine program is being run. The inverse of pour cost is the gross margin.
Pour cost can be calculated per serving, per product, or across an entire list. For by-the-glass items it depends directly on pour size: a heavier pour raises the cost percentage and shrinks the margin on every glass sold.
Why it matters
Beverage operators typically manage to a target pour-cost band, adjusting prices or pour sizes to stay within it. A pour cost that drifts upward signals rising supplier costs that prices have not kept up with, over-pouring, or untracked loss. Monitoring it protects margin without resorting to blunt across-the-board price hikes.
In a wine program, accurate pour cost depends on knowing real bottle cost (from lot data) and real pour volumes. Vinius ties glass pricing to configured volumes and underlying cost through its pricing engine, so pour cost reflects actual economics rather than a rule of thumb.
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