Regional Influences of Wines
April 23, 2010
During your stages of wine program development it is go to go back and revisit wines that maybe you had overlooked or forgotten about. The easiest way to do this is of course refer to your tasting notes. But maybe a more enjoyable way is to look at your wines by region.
Let me explain. If your wine list is a weighted list, meaning you heavy into say French wines, or Italian, start to revisit wines from different production regions. This way is not only educational but user friendly. It will certainly assist is remembering a specific wine or area which you liked but may have overlooked. It could also be an eye-opening exercise into new regions or micro climates within that region.
A smart operator then takes the information and creates an event from it. It could be a complex as a wine dinner, it may be just a micro climate flight of wines. Anyway you do it, it will add interest to your restaurant and give your customers a reason to think about you. Get the staff involved, training and teaching along the way. Explain the subtle differences that climate change or terrior can impart on grapes and the final product, wine.
Most countries have specific regions, pieces of a bigger puzzle, that produce wines. Get to know them and enjoy their unique history, culture and foods. Which reminds me, get the chef involved again! The will certainly love the opportunity to create something different.
Enjoy!
Wine Menu…A Wine Tool to Increase Wine Sales
April 16, 2010
The right wine menu can make all the difference to grow your wine sales….
I have seen many a wine list while traveling the globe. Some of them are as simple as a small insert card on a food menu while others need to be carried out on a cart with two big and burly servers to lift it on your table.
I can not speak for either end of the spectrum such as the previous examples but I will say they are probably not very good wine sales tools.
Your wine menu is the number one sales tool you have, besides the server. It is an important element in your wine sales process yet too many restaurants spend little effort maximizing the effectiveness of the tool. Why is that?
I think that most restaurants are afraid of their menu. Let me explain. Unlike tomatoes or shrimp for a food menu a vintage bottle of wine changes quite regularly. Wine as you know is not in everlasting supply. The production may end, the vintage changes, your cellar may be depleted. These are factors which make keeping the wine list current a hard task to complete. Not to mention the printing of new menus.
I believe you should look at your wine list as part of your wine marketing and treat it as an extension of your program. If your program is basic keep the menu basic. Congruently, if your program is extensive, your wine list should reflect the programs depth and diversity.
Let’s face it, the server can not stand at the table for long periods of time and answer every question a guest might think of. Your wine list should help answer questions for your guests. Make the wine list work for you. Here are some notes that may help you develop a better wine list.
1) Make wine list legible- Using the right font, color and paper can make a big difference. Test a few different combination for ease of readability, factoring in the lighting at different times of the day. Then select the one that reads easiest.
2) Make wine list concise- Most guests will skim through a list and look for keys such as a bottle they know or a price point they are comfortable with. Don’t make it to hard for the guest to find these things. Keep the descriptions from becoming to Wine Spectator like. And mix the pricing points around as to not make the list to linear.
3) Use boxing or highlighting to draw attention to featured wines. If you found a way to use your wine procurement to bring the cost of a feature down and make a little extra margin on the wine, feature it and give it a top billing.
4) Wines geographically correct- Check for accuracy on the list. Usually keeping up with vintage changes is tough. The wine distributors are not very good about letting you know when those changes occur. You need to keep on top of the wines by checking them in against your current list and keep it current. Listing the wines in a geographic order helps define your menu for your guests and let them pinpoint wines of interest.
5) I believe a wine list can be too big. For those restaurants that have a really extensive cellar, I recommend a list and then a Reserve Style list. The regular list is what you present to every guest with the offer to review the Reserve List if so chosen. Your regular list should be a manageable list that is easy to add or remove wines. Your Reserve List should include all bottles you wish to sell. This removes a little of the intimidation factor a big list can have and makes the guests who are not wine savvy a little more comfortable ordering wine.
Using your wine list as a sales tool is important to the overall health of your wine program and your servers should become familiar with the list in use. Test them on their knowledge of the list and soon you will have a winning combination of a great tool and great servers!
The Right Wines Increase Wine Sales
March 19, 2010
I may have written about this before so stop me if I sound familiar. I recently took some time off my writing schedule to open a new restaurant in Florida. It’s a nice place but really more of a pub then a restaurant.
The food menu is chock full of standard pub fare, the bar is fully stocked and we do quite a bit of promoting for music and such. Things are going well, all be it a bit slower than I would prefer. (economy, not location or pub, whew!)
One of the owners is wine savvy and would like to see us expand our wine listing to more than just a house wine and feature card. He believes that a bigger wine list will help attract wine lovers to the pub and sites many of his friends as the reason. While I am usually happy to oblige, in this case I believe it would be over kill. Here is why.
As I have said we are a pub, Irish at that. We cater to the local shot and beer guys, happy hour crowds and draw from the local colleges for late night traffic. This is not normally, a wine appreciative group. While I admit, we do get the occasional wine drinker who may feel slighted, I fear that the moderate sales we are showing within that category are not a reflection of the choices but lack of interest from our base.
This is when you need to use your head. While I love wine and everything that is wine, I had to recognize that this place may not be a wine establishment. Don’t let pride or ego get in the way. Make the decisions that will help make you place more profitable. Having 5 opened bottles of wine for your glass pours is ok, but not if your selling 1 or 2 glasses per night. Waste is a terrible thing (someone else once said that).
Anyways, I have been asked again by the owner so I think it is time we sat down and talked about it. I will stick to my guns and until I see the traffic that will support a progressive glass pour program I will continue My way!
PS Just in case I have a couple of boxes full of wine at home, for just such an emergency! LOL!
