Wine listing fees: As applied by Harbour House Group
By Christian Eedes, 17 May 2017
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Wine listing fees charged by restaurants – at least distasteful if not outright illegal – continues unabated.
Winemag.co.za condemns the practice and urges all wine producers to resist paying them while we will also continue to expose restaurants who solicit such fees – the only way the situation is going to be addressed is to continue to bring it to the public’s attention.
Divine Intervention is a firm consulting to the hospitality industry, their offering including assisting with wine listings and one of their clients is the Harbour House Group , owners of such restaurant brands as Harbour House, La Parada, Live Bait and Tiger’s Milk.
Winemag.co.za recently came into possession of 1) a letter from Divine Intervention to producers inviting wines for potential listing with the Harbour House Group and 2) documentation outlining costs. These are available for download HERE and HERE.
Divine Intervention was asked for comment but none had been received at the time of publication.
Read a previous guest post on the same subject here.
Listen to Cape Talk’s Pippa Hudson interview critic Michael Fridjhon and chef Peter Goffe-Woon on the subject here.
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Hennie Taljaard | 12 December 2018
buy a chunk of meat and a case of wine and braai at home. eating out is overrated.
Smirrie | 12 December 2018
Phil
I am dining there soon. So tell me to miss them !
Smirrie
Phil | 11 December 2018
Even in little old Hermanus this is now the happening. I shant publicly name and shame on this forum, but will make sure to inform any prospective patrons. To be fair, the above mentioned restaurant(s) wine list leave very little to the imagination. Also, Distell now offer restaurants listing fee’s off the bat. Progressive or a sign of the times?
Kwispedoor | 12 December 2018
That’s the whole point – name and shame publicly, Phil!
Charlie Birt | 13 July 2017
I agree wholeheartedly with Neil and the likes, we as consumers need to support the wineries that don’t participate in these transgression’s…
Neil | 24 May 2017
Perhaps one way to add pressure on wineries who pay listing fees, would be to do the following: Restaurants who do not demand listing fees, should create a list of wineries supporting these paid lists and inturn no longer list wineries who support these paid wine lists.
Owen | 24 May 2017
I have had first hand experience with the same problem with the following restaurants – all the eateries in Famous Brands, Spur group, Cape Town Fish Market, Adega, Colchacio, Moyo and a few more that have skipped my memory from the last 20 years.
Wino | 18 May 2017
Divine Intervention, owned by Shaun Terry, makes huge bucks from the listing fees business. They were given the boot by Ocean Basket last year when they realised that this sort of extortion was happening in their name. Only the big guys pay the fees and as a result the wine lists are BORING. Madam Zingara use him too, I think. Would be interesting to see which wines are on these lists to see who is actually playing their game.
Kevin R | 17 May 2017
A comprehensive list of establishments that employ this practice would be great. Will happily boycott every one of them or even sign a declaration to do so
Andrew | 17 May 2017
Another reason not to drink (cheap) Sauvignon Blanc.
Kwispedoor | 17 May 2017
Disgusting. Official extortion documents should really not contain that many primary school grammar mistakes.