The world according to Kevin Zraly still makes sense

From the chapter: Can we sell anything?

Kevin Zraly in Windows on the World during the halcyon days of the 1970s.

Kevin Zraly may be a restaurant wine icon of the past, but anyone seriously interested in a successful career as a sommelier or restaurant wine buyer would be foolish not to learn from his success, even if his glory days were in the ‘70s and ‘80s. So, for a profile I wanted to run in my industry column in 2010, I picked up the phone and called him.

My own restaurant wine career started in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I can't say I agreed, however, with one of the first things Zraly had to say: That many of today's wine lists are too far “out of the box.” That is, stacked with brands and wine types that are unfamiliar to most consumers.

I don't agree because that doesn't quite jibe with what's going on in the food (and therefore restaurant) world, which is unperturbed about whether or not guests are familiar with this or that type of food. Let me tell you, consumers in general are not perturbed. They love new dishes, different ingredients, original ways of cooking. The more unfamiliar, the better.

I personally feel that if a restaurant is as serious about its wines as it is about its cuisine, the wine list should be as unique and original as its cuisine. But balanced, of course, by reasonable pricing, packaged in friendly wording, delivered by a staff furiously trained on the mission, and above all, selected for sensory compatibility with specific dishes.

If wine lists meet these objectives through "out of the box" selections, so be it. At least this was a successful formula for me, in my career, involving over two-dozen restaurants opened in over a dozen states, from Hawaii to the New York.

Zraly went on to admit, though, “If I were doing a wine list today, 80% of it would ‘in the box,’ and the other 20%, I might have fun with—maybe some of the more obscure wines of the world.”

In 2009 Zraly had completed a study of 100 of the top wine lists in New York City conducted for ZAGAT.com, which went into an online consumer’s guide called Your Sommelier. Said Zraly, “In New York City it’s become almost a ‘sommelier competition’—a contest of who can make the most interesting wine list… I have never seen so many wines I never heard of.”

But because he describes himself as a “statistics man,” Zraly delivered his ZAGAT.com report on the most “wine friendly” restaurants based upon what percent of each wine list he found to be under $50, $75 and $100. Why? “Because statistics don’t lie. If only 5% of your wines are under $100, you cannot say you are a ‘wine friendly’ restaurant. Sommeliers like to experiment with new, exciting wines, but I just don’t think customers should have to experiment on wines in restaurants that cost over $100.”

Of course, he can say this because no one has sold more wine than Kevin Zraly, while at New York’s Windows on the World: In the halcyon days between the late ‘70s and mid-‘90s, Zraly posted a reportedly $6 million a year in wine sales alone. Yet during all that time, says Zraly, “80% of our wine sales came from about 40 wines… the other 800 to 1,200 wines on our lists were no more than window dressing.”

So as a matter of practicality, says Zraly, “a wine list I would do today would only have about 125 selections. The highest priced wine would be about $150—probably a Champagne, plus a few other ‘museum-piece’ type bottles in that price range. But 75% to 80% of my wines would be under $100. In today’s economy, anything over $200 would sit for a long time… making a wine list dominated by wines selling for $200 or more is something you just don’t do when times are tough.” Needless to say, when are times not tough in the restaurant industry?

Windows on the World, back in the day.

In a city like New York, of course, you expect to find some degree of invention or ingenuity. Says Zraly, "If anything, I was more surprised by how good many wine lists are in terms of their pricing, rather than the opposite." He cited one highly lauded restaurant in which "78% of the wines are under $100, which is almost unbelievable by New York standards." 100 seemed to be a magic number for Zraly. He singled out one restaurant offering 100 wines by the glass,  and another restaurant promoting "100 Wines Under $100." Still another, splitting the difference, was offering "50 Wines Under $50."

Asked how he thinks his influential sliding scale markup⏤drastically reducing markups on higher cost wines⏤pioneered during the 1970s could be applied today, given the considerably higher costs of ultra-premium wines today, Zraly had lots to say: "There's more than one way to make wine accessible. I found one restaurant promoting a pay-for-what-you-finish program, where if you drink only half of a $100 wine, you pay only $50. I also liked the way one restaurant group makes selections and determines prices... They brown-bag bottles and gauge what price they should be sold for based upon perceived quality... but if a wine tastes like it's worth $30 and actually costs $50, obviously they won't touch it."

It goes without saying, Zraly's hardened principles when it comes to pricing would make him a dinosaur among most of today's cost-indifferent, spendthrift sommeliers. His opinion: "When it comes to markups, I say to restaurants what I also say to wineries—you mark up for as much as you can sell. But when you reach a point of resistance, it’s a good idea to lower your prices. The bottom line, as Alan Stillman always used to say, is to ‘get butts in the seats,’ and like Alan, I always believed that the best way to do that is through wine, because that’s what makes every restaurant experience special.

“But at a certain point, you simply cannot measure success by just costs or markups. One of the most effective promotions you can do, for instance, is to offer at least one great wine, like a B.V. Private Reserve or Leoville-Las-Cases, and selling it for cost. You cannot be afraid to use wine to promote. At Cellar In the Sky, which was only a 32-seat restaurant, we offered 7 course/5 wine prix fixe dinners. We lost money on this space every single day, but we brought people to Windows, who talked about us, and told everyone they knew that they had the ‘best meal in the world’ at Cellar In the Sky.

“If you want to create a buzz, you may have to ‘lose’ $5,000. Then again, when you spend $10,000 on advertising, do you think of this as ‘losing’ money? If you think of promotions as being part of the cost of advertising, and promote by showing people what you do best, like we did at Cellar In the Sky, I don’t see where you lose.”

Zraly’s final caveat? “Education… staff training is just as important, or more, than pricing and selection. At Windows, our success grew directly out of staff tastings, wine courses, and testing, up to three times a week. The fact that the restaurant industry is notorious for staff turnover is all the more reason to emphasize training. Staff education can be tedious, and it’s time consuming, but in the long run it pays off.”