Wasting Too Much Wine?
A well flushed wine by the glass program is an exceptional and proud edition to your restaurant but, on a cost basis, it can sometimes be a struggle for a restaurant to uphold. This is almost always exclusively down to wastage and not selling enough of said wines by the glass. So how do you reduce this wastage and sell more of your wine by the glass to ensure that it’s not going bad on your backbar?
Cocktails
If you can look at your POS reports and work out which wines are underselling by the glass then use the creativity of your bartenders to help you sell them before each bottle goes bad. Design some cocktails centred around these wines and, especially with summer around the corner, sangria -red or white- and spritzers are excellent ideas for you to incorporate fresh and local fruits into said cocktails.
Pairing Guide
In order to increase sales of your wines by the glass you may want to create a pairing menu where you pair many dishes on your menu to a wine on your wine list. From this list your servers can suggest excellent wine pairings to your guests, thus enhancing their experience in your location and also selling more wine in the process.
Education and Upselling
Following on from the point above, properly educating your servers on wines and, specifically, the wines that you sell by the glass can significantly increase the sale of said wines. Not only giving them the knowledge of the pairings mentioned above but also, by increase their overall wine knowledge, you can enable them to suggest a similar wine to someone whom may be looking for a glass of wine that isn’t available on your wine list.
Change The Menu
You’ll already have a feel for what may be selling and what may not be selling in your location but look at the reports from your POS system and your wastage sheet to determine what you could take off the menu and replace with something else. There is never any harm admitting you made a wrong choice or in taking said item off your menu whether it be a dish, a cocktail, a wine or a beer; but judging on how to replace it and whether to replace it at all are the defining factors for success. If you’re removing a wine from your wine by the glass menu consider whether it is worth -or needs- replacing or whether you should just allow your other wines by the glass to sell better without the competition.
Kitchen
As a last resort you can use open bottles of wine that have turned bad for cooking in your kitchen. The poor quality of the wine won’t affect the dishes, because the wine is going to be cooked anyway, and doing so will save you money in the kitchen. This is not to say that this is a viable option for every bottle of wine that goes bad, as wine for behind the bar costs significantly more that wine destined for the kitchen; however it still puts the wine to use rather than putting it down the drain.
Before considering many of these options review your wine by the glass offerings and make sure that you have a good selection available for your guests and that anything you offer isn’t unreasonable in price or too wild in variety or from too small a producer that no one would know what it is and be scared to order it. Also consider how much wine you’re expecting to sell in your location and tailor your wine by the glass offering to this, your food menu and your intended cliental.
