Wine and Cook-outs on the 4th of July!
July 4, 2010
06:38:31Today is the 4th of July. Besides the fact that I am actually taking the time to write here on this day, which is incriminating enough, the special day reminds me of summer. Since we were kids the 4th of July meant something special. Family, friends, fireworks and cookouts! This is where my dilemma comes in.
As a wine advocate, someone who expounds the virtues of wine at any given opportunity, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the subject of which wines to pair with a cookout menu. If you were invited to a cookout which wines would you bring? Being rather warm in this part of the country around this time, one might typically think that this would be more of a cold beer or ice tea type of function. Nothing wrong with that! I too love beer and especially on a hot, beat down hot, type of day. So if you were so inclined, beer would be a good answer. The problem lies in the fact that I am “the Wine Guy”. You know that guy. Everyone knows that guy. He is the guy that shows up with wine at EVERY occasion. Weddings, funerals, holidays, birthdays, frankly any days.
So which WINE would you bring? Well you might start by trying to find out the menu. Call the host and ask what they are making, a simple question but sometimes hard to ask.
All cookouts are not alike. Gone are the days of just Hamburgers and hot dogs, replaced by skewers of chicken satay, grilled seabass, roasted corn cakes and more.
So I guess you might say that the same intriguing wine parings you normally are drawn to are applied here exactly the same way. Recently I went to a cookout with friends and found out the menu consisted of grilled flank steak, brats and lots of cold salads, some dressed in mayonnaise based dressings. Lots of choices here! Grilled flank steak usually means a marinade of some sort, so I picked a wine that could with stand the acidic nature of marinades and still balance the meat. Pinots can be overwhelmed, cabs can be to bold, so this time I picked out a Merlot. Not my favorite as you know, but the fruit and tannic base can stand with the acid and complement a brat also. I also brought a wonderful rose, with a great blend of fruit and mineral components that can crisp out mayo based dressings. Plus doesn’t summer just scream for rose?
Wine Success is a terrible thing to waste!
June 26, 2010
I continue to watch the market on wine and although prices seem pretty stable I still believe that it’s harder to find wines that fall into the category of “Value” wines. I think I have figured out the problem. Good wine! Hold on a minute, I know what you are thinking. How can good wine be the culprit? Let me explain.
You see, I think the wine industry suffers from its own advances. It suffers from better wine making, better farming techniques and grapes. It suffers from its own marketing machine and most certainly suffers from itself. Not there is anything wrong with this but it certainly makes it much harder to find values that nobody else knows about.
As the industry has matured, many new and important changes have basically over- saturated the market with good wine. There are plenty of good producers making very nice wines in every part of the globe. I know wine is not Kleenex. I mean how many ways can you make a tissue that different, right? But right now there is just too much wine being produced. Better yields per acre, better production methods and certainly a strained economic environment have helped to create this glut. Granted, not all wine is good. Some of it is down right undrinkable. If you have looked at your distributors catalogs lately you will see the enormous amount of wines actually being produced. It seems like it takes an hour just to get thru the whites. And that’s just one distributor. But it really comes down to one thing right? Price! Your guests think so. People are pinching wherever the can. Wine is near the top of that list. It is our own fault. We have ignored what our guest think. We haven’t listened to what they have been saying. But really, in an economy that is crippled we all need to do a better job putting wine lists out there that make sense.
It’s all well and good that you have a list full of the highly sought after wallet busters but what good is it doing for you if you are not selling it. People are dining with price as the central issue. You have looked at your dinner menus and made adjustments now it is time to look at your wine lists. Take the time to review your lists and make some tough decisions. Put wine back in the affordable range. I can not tell you how many people I speak with that are really put off by restaurant wine prices. They would love to enjoy a bottle with their meals but most restaurants make that cost prohibitive by using cost multipliers that are too high. I know a restaurant around here that is actually selling large quantities of wine with just a Retail markup philosophy. Some others are using a retail plus system and are doing quite nicely. The point is by making wines more affordable you are expanding your internal market of wine drinkers.
To long we have worked within the old adage that “I would rather sell one item for a million dollars then a million items at one dollar” Come on get with the rest of the world. Wine is still a luxury item to most diners. I want people to be able to enjoy wine with their meals. I believe you can actually increase this important revenue stream by lowering your pricing. More buying at less is better then few buying at none!
Robert Mondavi…….A look Back
May 6, 2010
I just finished reading a book written by Robert Mondavi. Yes that Robert Mondavi. It’s an older book, written when he was about 85 years old. Its called Robert Mondavi, Harvests of Joy. It was published in 1999. Sadly, Mr. Mondavi passed away in 2008 leaving a legacy of one of Americas greatest ambassadors. And Not just the wine arena
I won’t give you a critique on Mr. Mondavi’s writing style or his punctuation. But one thing I wanted to talk to you about was the one thing I extracted from the book. Mr. Mondavi was the ultimate driven guy. And what usually drives a man (or woman)?
Passion. Plain and simple.
Mr. Mondavi quite literally, carried the California Wine Industry on his shoulders for many years. It was through his dedication and passion about his craft that the international wine community finally took wines from the new world seriously. I am sure that eventually the European Wine community would have looked at the wines from “The New World” as rivals but back in the 60’s it was blasphemous for them to even think that. Through countless hours of repetitive “Selling” (for lack of a better word), Mr. Mondavi “talked” his way into the hearts and minds of many important wine people around the world. He used every opportunity he came across to ambassador California wine to the world. He was always promoting the soil, the climate, the grapes and techniques for making wines. Tireless and to a sometimes to a fault, Mr. Mondavi’s relentless pursuit of making world class wines drove him achieve what now one thought could be done. Now that’s Passion!
It got me to thinking that maybe what your restaurants could use is a little passion. Establish your staff as “Ambassadors” for your restaurant. When they are out and about they should be “Selling” you place and your wine programs. It certainly takes commitment but if they truly believe in it, it should be easy. But it would be hard to get your staff excited about it if they don’t feel your passion. So be passionate!
The world would certainly be a better place with Mr. Mondavi in it, but through his children, Michael, Tim and Marcie, he has left us a great legacy and example to follow.
By the way, they do make great wines! A Tavola!
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!
Wine Features Drive Wine Sales
April 9, 2010
What can a restaurant do to help increase sales in the Wine category? Well smart operators understand the effectiveness of creating features within the category.
Let me explain. Presentation of wine is a key element in selling. By presenting wine itself as a featured “event” of the restaurant, wine sales should increase. Just how do you do that effectively? Let’s look at a few components of Presentation.
In many restaurants wine sales, if offered, are almost an afterthought. You spent a lot of money to get the guest in your establishment to dine and oh by the way we have these wines they can drink It would be hard to get any customer excited about your program if the restaurant is not. So, the first thing we need to do is establish an effective wine program.
1) Develop a Wine List- Take some time and analyze your restaurant and see exactly how wine “fits” into your overall package. A good place to start is the menu. By recognizing what type of menu you work with you can see what types of wines will enhance your menu and compliment your restaurant. I have stated before it would be unwise to create an elaborate wine list for a burger and wing joint.
2) Staff Training- A key element in producing an effective program has to include your sales staff. They are your “optimizers” so make sure they know what they are selling. I know you understand this part because you are reading this on a wine service training site. Bravo!
3) Wine Events- Create a rotation of great wine events that are marketed directly to your guests. Maybe it is a wine tasting, or a wine education class. Maybe it is a Wine dinner with a winemaker or just a featured wine flight of the week. Which ever events you decide on, space them out to maintain a level of interest and continue to market them with cards, word of mouth, newsletters, memberships ect.
4) Create Excitement- Your staff can create all the excitement you need simply by talking about them with every guest. Bartenders, hostesses and floor managers can aid in this the same way. Make them a big deal and your guest will too!
5) Consider your profitability- Using creative purchasing practices and a bit of market study, you can incorporate the use of higher profit wines as your features. As you develop your features consider how you will market the features to your guests. Will it be table tents, menu clips, menu placement? Framing those wines that bring a better margin and effectively highlighting them will add to the bottom line
6) Keep the Momentum going- by continuing the program for the long haul, you have in effect created interest and destination. If your guests recognize you as a place to wine and dine you have become a destination. Ask regular customers for referrals, people they know who might have an interest in wine. Now go court them and keep the ball rolling!
Using these tips should help you get started on the right track for establishing wine features. The key is to use your intuitive skills and create opportunity. A great golfer has the skills to win, but needs the opportunity to shine! Create your opportunities for greater segment sales growth!
Creative Wine Service Will Increase Wine sales
April 2, 2010
After a short, well needed vacation, we will get started again right were we left off.
I am sometimes amazed when I frequent restaurants to see just how theatrical the service can be. There is a very popular restaurant in Tampa that gives the guests a tour of the kitchen, the wine cellar and the dessert room, prior to seating the guests. I love this idea and it works for this restaurant. They have an interesting floor plan and layout so it works.
The same may not work for you however. But one thing you can take from that example is that you don’t have to do things the same way everyone else does it. Take your wine service for example. How do you service your wines? What makes the way you do it the way you do? What can you do different?
Is there a right way and a wrong way? Certainly. But why not make service a bit more memorable, more theatrical. Find a unique way to bring the wine to the table, open the wine, serve the wine, dispose of the bottle, whatever. The point is to make it part of your sales approach and make it memorable.
Customers will appreciate the extra attention and it will add a bit of excitement to the dining room too! Can you go over the top? Sure you can, so try out a few different things. Have some fun with it. Get the staff involved and see what they can come up with.
Look, this may not be for you. Maybe you don’t feel you need to do anything like this. But the fact is you can always bring a little theater to your service, somewhere. What you are trying to do is stimulate sales, make a rather stuffy portion of service a bit more exciting.
Use your imagination and maybe, just maybe you’ll come up with a semi-signature portion of service.
Pieces and Parts To A Wine Tasting
March 26, 2010
Wine Tasting
If you are not so inclined to hold full scale wine dinners, maybe because you don’t have a full kitchen or room for many people to sit, you may find it just as lucrative to hold smaller, more intimate wine tasting’s.
Many of the same rules apply as with a wine dinner. The only thing that changes is the style of food served and the seating arrangements. Wine Tasting’s can be formal or very informal. You will find that most people attending a wine tasting are there not only for the wine but for some sort of education also. The education could consist of the wine maker talking about this particular vintage or his actual wine making method. It could consist of reviewing a specific region or particular wine. Anyway you do it, try to educate the guests as best you can.
Make up a review sheet for them complete with a section for notes but tasting and education. This way they can catalog the wines they have tried and keep a tasting book going thru future tasting’s.
Give the guest the opportunity to purchase the wines they drink directly at the function. Have an order sheet ready with bottle and cases pricing available. The obvious reason for doing this is sales but it also helps you gauge the level of interest in the wines. Ask your guest for suggestions to help improve future tasting’s, which wines or regions they might have a interest in. Get the customers involved.
I want to stress the level of importance of offering education as the back drop of the tasting. The better you help educate your customer base the easier it will be to have them include wine with their meals when they come in outside of a wine dinner.
Here to you wine tasting future! Salute!
Jump Start Wine Training with Staff Incentives
March 5, 2010
Grow Your Wine Sales Training Initiative for 2009
Over the next weeks, I would like to motivate you and give key steps to jump starting the Grow Your Wine Sales training initiative for 2009. Let’s start with the staff……..
Most servers come in to work and go about their side work and get ready for the shift. Little excitement, not much in the way of moral boasting! My staffs would get to work early, and make their way straight to the board- The Tracking Board.
The Wine Tracking Board was a graph that tracked the performance level of each staff member on any particular promotion or incentive we were currently running. Wine Incentives are a great way to increase sales in a low performing category or to boast employee moral.
Tracking throughout the period kept staffs interested and motivated. It may be a okay to pair up staff in a team building promotion, include cooks, bussers, host staff and even the dish room!
It is key that the tracking be fair and current. Nothing will kill a promotion like the same people always winning or tracking be late in posting. Make sales numbers post by shift average or check average. That way it is fair for the part timers also!
Most of all, have fun with it and make the goals obtainable. If no one can get there what have you accomplished!
Getting your staffs excited and looking forward to coming to work can be easy with a little planning and execution of well designed wine promotions or incentives.
Wine Displays In Your Restaurant Will Increase Wine Sales
March 5, 2010
Walk in the front door of a restaurant and you usually get an immediate impression of the place. It could be the smell of fresh baked bread, roasted garlic or big pastry displays. It could be a smiling owner or the sound of the piano bar.What about a wine display?
Placing beautiful displays of wine and wine peripherals in different areas of the restaurant will help get customers thinking about wine even before you have seated them.
Many high end restaurants have placed wine rooms and racks in plain view of diners, giving them a direct view of the breadth of wines offered. For those restaurateurs on a tighter budget, just a table display could be effective. Empty bottles, glasses, corks, decanters, screws, are all tools that can be used to create a display.
Place the displays in view of customers, but not in high traffic or service areas. Keep the displays current, clean and bright. Take the opportunity to place your featured wines in the display. You can use bottles of interest, wine magazine covers or old wine manufacturing equipment as a focal point.
Place fliers or cards announcing wine dinners or features on or near the displays. Have the hostess travel by the displays so guest can see them. Use the displays as a compliment to all your internal marketing efforts.
If you are not inclined to being artistic, have a contest with your staff and see who can show their creative talents of display art for a small prize. Hey, why not?
Build a wine display and watch your wine sales increase!
Wine…..Tools of the Trade
February 26, 2010
When a baseball player goes up to bat it seems to me it would be very important to have the proper tools with him for him to be successful. Of course he needs a bat, a helmet and maybe some batting gloves. Short of having these things it could be a very miserable at-bat.
The same principals apply to just about every job in life. It is no different for a server selling wine. If he/she takes the order for a bottle of wine but does not have the proper tools to serve it, then it goes without saying it will be a very miserable sale.
Let’s review some of the tools that a server would need to serve wine properly. It may seem a little obvious but I can’t tell you how many times I have seen servers scramble around looking for these items when they get an wine order.
1) A corkscrew- Yes, believe it or not a server needs to keep a wine screw with them at all times. There are many different corkscrews and styles of openers to choose from. I like a cork screw that has at least 5 “turns” on the screw and is at least 1 ½ inches long, tip to end. This is especially important to have if you are opening quality wines with age or with Italian and some South African wines. These wines tend to have longer corks then their counterparts and a longer screw helps release the cork with the proper leverage.
Learning to use a corkscrew is fairly easy but again it can be used poorly and destroying the cork on a nice bottle is both embarrassing and time consuming. Let new servers train by opening a few by-the-glass wines for the bartenders. With a little practice they will be opening wines like a pro in a short amount of time.
2)Wine Chillers and stands (if possible) – Most white wines benefit from staying chilled. Supplying your staff with a proper chiller is the restaurants responsibility. Ensure the chillers are cold, clean and rust free (if metal) and also in good repair. A matching stand may also be necessary.
It is also important to have enough wine chillers. Although you can never predict how many wines you will sell each night that need chillers, it is always a good idea to keep enough of them on hand for those special nights.
3)Wine Cloth- I believe it is a good idea to keep a wine cloth handy to help in the event of dirty corks, dripping or god forbid, spillage.
4) Wine Inventory- Some bottles which may be running low in inventory need to be communicated to the wait staff. With this information it will help eliminate embarrassing shortages for large parties or multiple wine bottle purchases.
5) Other items may include vintage charts, tasting notes, Food/Wine paring notes, decanters, candles, wine filters and piece of string. (This last one is for those who may have “pushed” a cork and need to remove it from the bottle, with practice fairly easily.) These all depend on the level of service for each restaurant.
Keeping your staff equipped and trained will help your restaurant develop the confidence need to help sell wine and assist in development of a strong wine service reputation.
