The staff at ELV is always begging us not to post too many things in one day. But this article in today’s SLATE by Mike Steinberger (one of our favorite wine columnists) makes the argument (or more accurately, the forecast), that the recession will cause restaurants to lower their outrageous markups on wine. So it was too timely and (hopefully) prescient to pass up.

And guess where he mentions as having some of the greatest gouges? Yup, our humble hamlet.

Presaging this article, we spent last week tooling around LV restaurants with Alan Richman (the ex-husband of Lettie Teague quoted in the article), and all we heard from The Hitman was how unfair and crazy the pricing on our lists were. To quote him directly: “Something’s gotta give with the outrageous prices all these restaurants charge for wine.” To be fair, he was referring not just to our top shelf spots, but those across the country who think they can continue to get away with 300% markups on a non-perishable product.

But let’s face it: The high-end restaurants of Las Vegas are the worst offenders; and the GQ columnist, and his ex-wife the Food and Wine wine columnist, and every wine pro in America knows they are.

Here’s a link to Lettie’s article….and let’s hope they’re all correct in their predictions…and that the recession restores some sanity to this system.