As a hotel manager, running a bistro & restaurant the notion of using the wine list to balance the books is absolutely right. We would be out of business if we did not charge a high mark up on the alcohol. How stand alone restaurants stay in business I do not know, we have the accolade of 'Gasto pub of the Year' but it is only by selling bedrooms that we can turn a profit. Saying this however every Friday night we run our Claret Club whereby we sell our top end Claret wines at cost price plus VAT, relying on the food spend to make a return. Similarly every Thursday we have a Sausage & Mash night where a glass of wine is £1. The notion of 3-400% mark up is misleading and is actually an industry wide 70% Gross Profit, but of this 70% we have to pay for Crystal glasses which easily break, a sommellier, equally as fragile, and all our other business running costs. The Gross Profit on a car is far higher but nobody queries this because you cant buy them in Sainsburys.

Craig Webb, Woodstock, Oxfordshire

I am astounded that your correspondent suggests that one should choose wines on their name ("go...for tongue-twisters") or their geography ("go for...Germany or Alsace")!

Is this really good oenological advice?! Is one led to believe that the mark-up would be less because of a restaurateur's gamble on the diner's hesitancy over the difficult-to-pronounce, or the popularity of a region? Is it any wonder sommeliers have a reputation for being aloof; these reasons given for choosing a particular wine would surely invite scorn and mockery?

What next? Advice over what to choose from the menu based on how it's pronounced, or where it's from? I would suggest there are one or two more reasons for making a dining decision than these! This is facile and worthless advice (fit only for the witless diner, who would no doubt um and ah before choosing the wine second from the top of the wine list anyway).

Donald, London,