Wine Currents
January 2005

Vanilla and Chocolate Wine: Is Your Wine List Boring?

By Peter Langlois

I fault both many independent and chain restaurants for what I can only call intellectual laziness when it comes to developing wine lists for their restaurants. While dedicated to developing food menus--some are maniacs about this--so many simply hand off their wine lists to sales reps or distributors who will print the menu for free. The result: The same boring selection from one restaurant to another.

In your restaurant, count the number of Cabernet Sauvignons, Chardonnays and Merlots being offered. Are you over-loaded on these? Look to see if they are so-called national brands that frankly, you could pick up at Safeway, Kroger or any local grocery store with a halfway decent wine department. In fact, I suggest you take your wine list to several grocery stores. Cross off every wine on your list that you find at the grocery stores. Then go to the big wine shops and look at the wines they have massed out on their sales floors. Cross these off of your list. Why would you do this?

If you’re featuring wines that can be easily found in these places, you’re providing your guests with a point of reference that will most likely lead them to believe you’re ripping them off! That’s terrible marketing! What if you decide to take less contribution margin on those wines in your restaurant because customers would be up in arms if you gouged them? Then you’re simply being financially irresponsible. Why would you want to run a high wine cost? Would you intentionally increase your food, beer, liquor and labor costs? That’s just plain bad management.

With so many national brands—I’m not naming names—a great deal of the cost is in the packaging and marketing, not in the contents. A number are good wines, but I’d say over-priced. You can find many food-friendly wines that are great and offer a better margin opportunity. You just have to work at this like you do your food menu. You can show that wine list with all the cross outs to your vendors and challenge them to bring you wines that are restaurant quality, not grocery store brands. Manage this situation to be creative and make more money for your operation/s. Your guests will appreciate the effort you make to provide choices that are more daring, more adventuresome.

Think about it. How excited would you get about opening a bottle of wine you could have picked up at the local grocery store for about one-third the price you’re paying at a restaurant? Might that not make you think you’re also being ripped off on the food?