Why short wine lists make sense
From the chapter: Nuts and bolts
Why do restaurateurs feel compelled to put out wine lists of biblical proportions in order to find love and self-respect? Beats me. I’ve spent most of my professional life dedicated to the proposition that a small wine list—defined here as no more than 25 to 150 selections—is not only superior to a big wine list, but also just as appealing where it counts most: Meeting customers’ needs.
When I first started in the business as a sommelier I was compelled to execute wine lists in conventional fashion, by offset printing on parchment or stiff cardstock. It was such a slow, laborious, costly process that wine lists could not be changed more than once, at the most twice, a year. This made keeping up with changing vintages impossible (most wines, consequently, were listed without vintages). Half a sommelier's job was being the one person on the dining room floor who knew which wines on the list were available and which wines were out of stock. Looking back, I truly feel sorry for the pain we regularly inflicted upon guests, just looking for a decent bottle of wine.
I felt that pain so much that I deliberately began gravitating towards smaller and smaller lists that could be changed more frequently, with more accuracy and at lower cost. At one point I even experimented with handwritten wine lists printed out on a copier⏤oh, about 70 or 75 selections at a time, consisting of whatever wines I wished to sell (going to tables with unlisted selections carried in my head)⏤in a fashion inspired by the way Michelin Star chefs used to write out their menus every day.
Computers changed everything. At the dawning of that age, during the mid-1980s, my lists looked like IBM computer print-outs because that was exactly what they were; but I didn't care because suddenly we had the capability of saving files and changing pages anytime we wanted. It was liberating. By the late 1980s desktop fonts also became available, and there was no turning back.
Although computers gave the entire industry the ability to keep even gigantic programs up-to-date and wine lists presentable, I was already sold on the benefits of smaller scaled wine lists. Becoming a partner in a chef-driven operation was, to say the least, a major part of it. All of the sudden you become more conscious of 1) cost/time efficiency, 2) profit, and 3) molding a wine program to a specific cuisine. The concept of the short wine list became more important than ever.
Hence, the reasons why a small, well-maintained wine list works:
Generates unbeatable profits. I know this because I’ve managed award winning wine programs for 200-seat restaurants typically carrying less than $25,000 in inventory at any given time, yet regularly generating two to three times that in monthly wine sales. After ten years, these profit margins helped us grow our business from one location to over twenty. But whether or not you’re into multi-unit expansion, short wine lists just makes operational sense. I never understood a wine program that doesn’t constantly turn over its cost of inventory because no matter how you slice it, a bloated wine inventory represents a drain on resources; hurting everything else you do, from food costs and menu writing to staffing and service. Although the vast majority of guests care more about food and service than they do about wine, they won't be able to care about anything at all if you go out of business for simple lack of profitability.
Gives competitive pricing advantage. Providing your food, spirits, labor and fixed costs are also under control, the small wine list can give you the extra leeway of lower markups on select wines⏤making even 40% to 50% pouring costs possible, as opposed to the industry standard 30% to 35%—which gives any restaurant a crucial edge in today’s competitive market.
Builds in flexibility. A small wine list is changeable at the drop of a hat (several times a day if you like), and therefore gives you the highest percentage chance of taking advantage of the best buys, the most highly allocated wines, keeping selections fresh or seasonal, and finding the ideal matches for anything new and different your chefs throw at you, which could be any given time.
Friendly to guests and staff. The small wine list is not only the easiest to manage, it is also the most meaningful (i.e., easiest to master) to your staff, besides being the most easily digestible and personable to your guests. The majority of consumers naturally prefer a less intimidating list and are more likely to return to a restaurant with small, personal touches, such as servers who can speak intelligently about their food and wines. The shorter the list, the easier it is for everyone.
Those are the benefits; now here are the techniques that make it happen:
Pick your format and stick with it through disciplined rotation. My own 75-selection wine lists made the point of running small inventories and standard overall 33% pouring costs. For smaller operations (less than 100 seats, anywhere from $2 to $4 million in annual gross revenue), a 40- or 50-selection wine list carrying monthly inventories as low as $9,000 or $12,00 makes sense. Yet when executed with all the finesse and creativity possible in small wine programs, small scale operations are still capable of generating three or four times their standing inventories in monthly sales, while posting higher than average industry percentages of overall sales (in American restaurants, wines sales are typically about 18% of overall sales). In fact, most of our smaller restaurant programs did exactly that. We were more than a successful restaurant group—we were a successful business.
The smaller the list, the more flexibility you need to keep it varied, exciting, and accurate. Make sure you’re printing in-house, on reasonably priced paper, and using easily changed binders. If you can’t do it all yourself, train other managers or staff to help you. When you run a smaller scaled program, group effort becomes more possible.
Consumers perceive small wine lists as being friendlier, and you can make it more so by including heartfelt descriptions and even food recommendations. I have yet to meet a wine drinker who doesn’t prefer a wine list that communicates something over ones that provide no guidance whatsoever. Consumers are consumers—they crave information—and it is a lot easier to fulfill this fundamental need with a short wine list than a long one.
Your wine selection needs to be done with clear direction, courage and conviction. In the small format, representation of all the basic wines from around the world is far less important than finding wines that fit your chosen theme or niche, match your food, and “wow” your guests. The wines more likely to do the latter are those that are easy to appreciate (i.e., ease of drinking and price), yet vividly flavorful, strikingly original, and surprising (who doesn’t like surprises?). Stick to wines that your guests won’t soon forget, and leave them begging for more!
Make your selections count by focusing on intrinsically balanced, utilitarian styles that are most likely to match multiple dishes; that is, silky smooth wines that avoid excesses like burning alcohol or bitter tannin. Pinot Noirs and Rieslings are a good place to start, but there is so much more waiting for you and your guests to “discover.”
If some of your clientele demands big brands and classic or “comfort” labels, so be it. But be sure to mix these in with your cutting-edge, “fun” or adventurous stuff. Differentiation is Business 101. With myriad choices available in the marketplace today, there is no excuse for any wine list that fails to even try to stimulate the intelligence and curiosity of the average guest..
Sit down for heart-to-hearts with your distributors and suppliers. They need to understand your selection process in order to support you as a partner in your endeavors, and to help you find the wines that meet your needs (not theirs!).
Staff training and enthusiasm are essential, but only the beginning. Servers actively involved in points of sale naturally gravitate towards wines that yield the best customer response. Servers are the ones who know what's going on in the dining room every night⏤don't let that knowledge go to waste. Besides tasting them on every new wine, eliciting their intel and seeking more input on the styles of wines they would prefer to sell will only strengthen your program that much more. Staff participation is a mark of a truly mature, savvy, sophisticated wine program.
It’s okay to ride with your successful selections for longer lengths of time, but retain the attitude that change is always good. Your constant goal should be to expand rather than sit upon your customer base, which is guaranteed to shrink if not nurtured and replenished. It is the small, profit driven wine program built for change and flexibility that gives you the highest percentage chance of long term growth.
If there is one constant in our business, it's this: Consumer tastes evolve with increasing speed. If that’s the case, it goes without saying that it’s easier to keep pace with changes by working within a format that maximizes your own ability to evolve—the short and sweet wine list.