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Making your wine list fit for 2022
15 February 2022 - Justin Sims
The days of offering a fixed and extensive wine list for months at a time will have to be reconsidered if you want to avoid disappointing your customers this year. This may sound stark, but unfortunately, it’s a harsh reality, a continuation of the issues felt over the past six months or so when the hospitality sector was permitted to reopen.
The impact of the pandemic on the global supply chain network continues to present major challenges to all industry sectors, and none more so than hospitality (as highlighted in my recent interview with Alliance Wine’s Ned Llewellyn).
But Climate Change is the main protagonist, with extreme weather events causing everything from severe spring frosts and hail, heavy rain and flash flooding, and drought conditions and wildfires. Vineyards are particularly susceptible to all of these issues, and the past two vintages, in particular, 2020 and 2021, have made history as some of the worst affected.
So what steps can we take to make our wine lists fit for 2022 and beyond, and how can we minimise the impact of unavoidable price increases on many of the most popular wines?
Flexibility is the Key
Irrespective of how many wines you’d like to offer to your customers, you will need to be as flexible as possible. Not only will you need to think about featuring some alternative grape varieties and appellations on your list (read Go Bold Explore Some Fantastic Grape Alternatives and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Alternatives for inspiration), but you will need to think about how you actually present your wines too. Engineer your wine list to not only maximise profit but offer education and experiences to valuable guests.
If possible, try to avoid printing expensive wine menus unless you can produce them in-house. Offering menus digitally is not only a great way to maintain flexibility, but it’s more environmentally friendly too, although this is obviously quite costly to set up initially. If you can’t manage the investment into digital, chalkboards are a cost-effective, tried and tested solution as they’re easy to amend daily and have a negligible carbon footprint too.
Rationalise Your Wine Offering
Rationalising your wine list but increasing the number of wines you offer by the glass is a good way to increase the size of your offering for customers who are drinking less but drinking better, as well as minimising your exposure to out of stocks. It also ties up less money in stock too.
If you’re going to increase your ‘by the glass’ range and you haven’t already done so, consider a wine preservation system like ‘Le Verre de Vin’, or if this is too expensive, a Coravin works well for mid to higher-priced wines where a Vacuvin pump and stoppers can manage the faster turnover wines.
Wine List Layout
There are some useful pointers worth considering here. A poll carried out last year by digital trade magazine ‘The Drinks Business’ revealed that the most important factor on a wine list was the geographical regions represented. Food and wine pairing information and price points were also featured prominently.
Listing your wines by geographical region means that you can still offer a representation from New Zealand, for example, but it doesn’t have to be Sauvignon Blanc.
Having price points that are carefully staggered, even if the list is more concise, gives customers the opportunity to trade up more easily than having wider price gaps. It may sound obvious, but also try to avoid listing the wines in price ascending order. This will encourage customers to explore the full extent of your offering.
Now I’ve never been a fan of the term ‘house wine/s’. Not only does it remind me of pub and Chinese restaurant wine lists from the 1980s and 90s, but 99 times out of 100 they represent the cheapest level on the wine list. Given it’s an easy default for your less knowledgeable customers to make…well you can see what I’m getting at, can’t you.
If you’re going to insist on using the ‘house wine’ term, why not choose a wine that you and your staff are passionate about or one that best pairs with your signature dishes. That way, you can add credibility as well as make an easy upsell for the less decisive punters.
What’s Causing the Price Increases?
I mentioned there are a number of popular wines that are facing a severe shortage and big price hikes this year. Probably the highest profile is kiwi Sauvignon Blanc which has seen a 30% reduction in vintage 2021 due to severe frost damage but France, Italy and Spain have also been widely affected too, France especially so.
Popular French appellations like Picpoul de Pinet, Champagne, Chablis and Beaujolais were badly affected although Champagne will be able to mitigate against this to some degree by using a higher proportion of reserve wines.
Additional pressure in the form of steadily growing global demand, especially now the grip of the pandemic is weakening, is further exacerbating the issue pushing prices up, even on wines like Prosecco and north Italian Pinot Grigio that didn’t suffer at the hands of nature.
So, to summarise:
- Do consider keeping your wine offering tighter this year
- Do explore alternative grape varieties and wine styles that are more readily available
- Do think about presenting your wine menu in a more flexible and cost-effective way
- Do consider expanding the number of wines you offer by the glass, paying particular attention to more premium wines
We have a huge amount of experience in wine list curation and design so please do get in touch if you need a helping hand