What is the flavor profile of this wine? What should it be served with? Is US$44 a good deal for this bottle? More importantly, even if you are familiar with this wine or you’re using clues to deduce the answers, can the average customer determine any of these things?
(Contributed by Mike Kostyo for HOTELS’ sister publication Plate)
Chances are the answer is, “No.” In fact, according to Datassential’s FLAVOR database, which tests knowledge and preferences for every major ingredient and dish, only 12% of consumers say they have ever heard of Vouvray and a measly 5% have tried it. Even relatively well-known wine regions, like Bordeaux, are relatively unfamiliar; less than a quarter of consumers say they have tried it.
And yet we continue to hand customers massive tomes with page after page of varietals and countries and vintages to decipher. There must be a better way! Or five!
1. Use flavor descriptors
This is almost too obvious, and yet, it’s still all too rare. Sometimes it seems like we go out of our way to put everything but flavor descriptors on the menu. I’ve seen digital wine lists that include interviews with the winemaker and photos of the vineyard, but no description of the wine’s flavor.
But 84% of consumers say taste is important to them when selecting a wine—far outweighing all other attributes—and that descriptors like “sparkling” or “fruity” outweigh attributes like origin or vintage, which are far more common. Take a cue from Rootstock, a wine bar in Chicago, that has the most fun-to-read and helpful list in the city—“Here we have a perfect wine for seafood and vegetables, bright and lively, with searing acidity, gripping minerality, lean salt-taffy—and if left in the bottle it would outlive us all.”
2. Help customers over the cost barrier
Consumers say that the number one barrier to buying wine is cost, and that’s especially true at restaurants, where the markup is even higher. It’s not surprising, considering that it’s likely the single most expensive thing they’ll purchase at a meal. But there are some ways to make that price barrier less intimidating.
Sommeliers will immediately ask how much a customer wants to spend, but our culture hasn’t quite caught up to this “let’s talk freely about money” mentality. “How much do you want to spend?” can sound an awful lot like “Show me your pay stub.” While some fat cats may like to show off, many others feel less comfortable naming a price, particularly if it’s on the low end of the menu.
Yes, restaurants need to make money, but it’s important to make options at every price point appealing and approachable. Every wine on a list should have a reason to be there beyond the price. Offer up a variety of options at a range of prices and note why they were chosen for the menu or pair well with a dish. This is where flavor descriptions also help, giving customers a way to make a case for their selection other than price while also showing why a markup is worth it.
3. Be more fun
At a time when wine is available at Taco Bell and you can walk around with a glass of it at your local supermarket, it feels like wine can’t get any more approachable. But many restaurants haven’t quite caught up to this democratization.
Fruity, sweet wines are consumers’ most preferred varieties overall, but preconceived notions about what’s an acceptable wine to order in a nice restaurant keep even seasoned wine drinkers from ordering them. Ask yourself: Are your customers ordering the wines that make them happiest or the wines that they feel like they “should” be ordering? Anything that gets them ordering—whether it’s menu organization or server and sommelier training (or all of the above)—is an improvement in the customer experience.
On a recent trip to Portland, Oregon, a colleague stopped into Pairings, a wine shop that pairs wine with just about anything; think movie characters, songs, athletes. She showed them a picture of her cat and they found the perfect wine for a person with that breed. It may sound a little “out there” for a high-end restaurant, but fine dining today is hardly the starched tablecloth experience it used to be, which opens opportunities to be a little bit more approachable and fun with you wine list.
4. Offer samples
Customers love samples, and say they are the number one way to convince them to try a new product or dish. While you may be thinking, “Of course customers want something for free,” in this case it really can help. Even the best descriptions make it hard to truly understand what something will taste like, particularly when more unusual or lesser-known varietals are taking their place on menus. Offer a drinkable amuse bouche of a special wine that recently arrived; it’s an opportunity to talk more about the customer’s likes and dislikes and forge that relationship with them. Offer up something neutral and gauge their palate; would they prefer something sweeter, drier, more acidic? If a customer can’t decide between wines, offer them a taste. If it doesn’t spark joy with them, make use of wine preservation systems or offer the rest by-the-glass as special. It may seem like a lot of work and money, but customers will remember when you pushed them out of their comfort zone and introduced them to a new favorite.
5. Pare it down
The average fine dining restaurant has nearly 200 bottles on the menu; some lists run into the thousands of bottles. While some customers expect that many options, there are still ways to make it more manageable for the average person who is intimidated by the leather-clad doorstop that just appeared on their table. Once again, flavor descriptions can help. The first (and likely most important) decision customers make is what they are going to eat, so organizing the list by flavor can immediately pare down the options based on what they are ordering. Offering a shorter list of sommelier selections, special bottles, or house favorites at the front of the list or on the dinner menu itself can also help. And at the end of the day, you should still ask yourself if every wine deserves its place on the menu; “curation” seems to be a popular word in any industry these days and it also applies to wine lists.
Some of these lessons are applicable beyond the wine menu; how many fine dining menus feature long lists of ingredients—often a few that the average person has never heard of—with no clue as to what the dish will actually look or taste like (“Apple, tonka, ‘oyster,’ ice”)? Above all, dining out should be enjoyable, and whether it’s the menu, wine list, service, or décor, we should ask ourselves whether the experience is approachable, generous, and pleasurable to all customers, across demographics.