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!

Originally posted 2009-03-11 10:46:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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.

Originally posted 2009-01-08 19:25:25. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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.

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Originally posted 2009-02-12 12:35:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

That’s right! Train your customers and let them try it too. I believe that nothing can bring out the passion of what you are trying to do better than by example.

Your regular customer base believes in you and your restaurant. They have taken a little piece of ownership in your establishment and look for reason to come back again and again. Well why not give them a reason that can benefit them even beyond the scope of dining. Try starting a wine class for your regular customer base, (of course it’s open to all) and give them the opportunity to learn hands-on.

With a little planning and an easy to follow curriculum, you can put together a great series of classes your customers can get excited about. Here is what you need:

1) Wine Class Schedule- Make up the class schedule using regular intervals such as bi-weekly or monthly, but always start at the same time. It’s easier for your “students” to schedule you this way

2) Wine Curriculum- Develop a series that explores fundamentals, winemaking, regional influence and production. Make it fun!

3) Wine Tasting- Plan to incorporate wines you have available on your list, both for inventory challenges and future sales ability. Invite students to share their stories about a specific wine or trip to wine country. But remember, it is just a tasting. Teach people to respect wine as well.

4)Wine Guides for each class- Write out a syllabus of the class complete with an area for tasting notes. This gives your students material to review and keeps them interacting. You need to stress how important discovery is in wine drinking and that this class is really just an exercise in discovery.

5) In house Wine Marketing Plan.- Don’t just rely on flyers to spread the word. Get your staff excited about the classes. Keep them up to date on the curriculum, where the class is at, and what the weeks feature wines were. Check presenters and cards are a good way to keep the guests interested. It should be posted on your monthly mailers and email blasts. Starting a wine club?………

Anyway you do it, an educated wine customer will increase wine sales. Making your guest feel welcomed and part of the family builds loyalty and keeps your name on their minds, not your competitions.

Originally posted 2009-01-20 12:37:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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!

I’ve come to the realization that one of the many strengths of a restaurant when it comes to wine is its chef. Think about it. Who knows taste better than your chef? I think it would be a rave mistake to not include your chef in your wine program.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to hold regular wine dinners. The chef has the palette to help you match up your wines with the food he can prepare for the dinner. It’s a no-brainier.

Here a few things you should do when setting up a wine dinner. I’ am sure that you could add some to this list so feel free to contact me with your additions or comments.

1) Featured Winery. – It’s a good idea to feature a specific winery, wine or region. That way you can work with your distributors and see if you can get a guest speaker involved, maybe a winery owner, winemaker or wine authority and feature their wines.

2) Develop a consistent Style.- People like to know what to expect when the shell out cash for a wine function. Come up with a style that you and your guests are comfortable with, including pace and content.

3) Market Inside and Out- To make this an event, make sure you have enough guests. Once you have chosen a theme or winery, promote the event for enough time in advance to secure enough people to make it worthwhile. Start with marketing it in the restaurant with check presentation cards, posters and fliers in the restrooms and entry ways. Have your servers mention the event while getting to know the table. Also, market in local papers, coffee shops, wine and spirit stores, and community centers. Email blasts and a press release to the local paper would help too!

4) Make sure you have enough wine glasses for the event.- I can’t tell you how many wine dinners I have been to that did not have enough glassware to supply all the guests. If you do not feel like purchasing them is a good idea make sure you rent enough for all courses and a few backups!

5) Make sure the Chef is involved with all aspects- Get your chef involved from the beginning. Let him attend the tasting meetings with suppliers to get a feel for the wines and maybe to gain a little inspiration from them. Work with him to develop a menu that both of you are comfortable with and would be easy to produce. After all its good business to keep him/her inspired and fresh.

Wine dinners are a great revenue source and can contribute to the overall marketing approach the restaurant has. Given its importance in the restaurants personality, keep going with the dinners even if response wanes on occasion.

Originally posted 2009-04-22 11:54:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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.

Originally posted 2009-05-27 15:43:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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!

Originally posted 2009-04-06 19:59:40. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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!

Originally posted 2009-05-13 15:42:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

While Spanish wines have been around for a long time, many wine drinkers are just discovering them for the first time. Spain offers a diversity of wine styles which will please many pallets.  
Wine production in Spain has undergone a major overhaul in the past 40 years. New world grape growing techniques and production methods combined with modern thinking winemaker’s have elevated Spanish wines to a level unprecedented in their history.   
Long relegated to the bottom of a wine list or the back of a wine shop, Spanish wines are becoming much sought after and extremely expressive. Wines made from many different grape varietals some indigenous and some not offer many complex wines from all regions of the Spanish countryside.  
One region is currently trending higher then others in regards to popularity of new age wines. That region is Catalonia. Here are just a couple of reasons 
            a) With more than 50 organic winegrowers Catalonia has the highest

                concentration of organic winegrowers than any other country. 

            b) Barcelona- the capital of the region is a very popular and chic place to

                visit. With its diverse culture, unusual architecture, art history and its

               wonderful array of internationally renown restaurants Barcelona is one

              of the Mediterranean’s jewels 

            c) Price Points- Although some wines from this region can fetch a good

                price, most of the wine s produced in this region offer exceptional value 

Although many wines are exported across the globe from Catalonia, the star of the region has been the Cava’s or Sparkling Wines. Many made in the traditional Methode Champenoise, and aged in wonderful caves high in the Mountains of the region, the sparkling wines offer the drinker a wonderful reflection of the wine regions offerings.  

Priorat produces wonderful approachable wines made predominantly from the Granacha grape. Many high end wines are produced in this region and its popularity amongst winemakers has pushed this region into becoming Spain’s second D.O.Ca.  

Tarragona, Montsant, Terra Alta, Penedes and Pla de Bages round out an impressive group of diversified growing regions, mainly with coastal influences.  

Venture out even if you can get to travel their. The wines of Catalonia offer wine drinker’s a glimpse into the culture and diversity of the region.   

Originally posted 2009-06-11 09:18:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter