Selling Wine to Restaurants - Essential Tips

After a few days on the road, here are a few, hopefully useful, takeaways.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say that in a long time”

This response, from my distributor’s area sales representative, last week, took me by surprise. All I’d said, as we headed out on a tour of potential customers, was that I fully appreciated that my K’AVSHIRI wines wouldn’t be an easy sell.

The K’AVSHIRI wines - not an easy sell

Now, a pricy set of limited-production, multi-vintage wines with an unfamiliar brand name, produced in Georgia from a whole load of unpronounceable grape varieties, using techniques most people have never heard of, has to be one of the tougher wine sells. But, when I thought about it, how much easier are wines from any of Europe’s hundreds of lesser-known appellations? At least mine have an eye-catching label and a bit of a story behind them.

To be blunt, in a crowded market, unless it comes with a combination of big reputation and low price, a 95-point score and a connection to George Clooney, or a huge marketing budget, I’m not sure if any wine is an easy sell, no matter how delicious it may taste.

Our day went well because the rep had taken the care to choose restaurants whose cuisine and wine lists already leaned towards adventurous styles, so there was a greater openness from the somm or restaurateur than there might have been elsewhere. They knew their customers might be up for trying something different.

This may seem obvious, but I’ve lost count of the number of producers who’ve looked totally blank when I’ve asked them who they think their wines are for.

Show and tell

Given the many aspects of K’AVSHIRI’s production that set it apart, we also craved a few moments of the somms’ time to show them a video that explains precisely what sets these wines apart. Hopefully, making the points visually was more memorable - and quicker - than doing it orally, or even by flicking through PowerPoint slides.

I am now in Georgia starting work with a talented photographer/ videographer on some hopefully great harvest images and footage that we can use to give a flavour of Georgia as a place. But until we have that, I relied on what we already had.

Filling the vacuum

As we continued our tour, I discovered that we also benefited from an additional secret weapon. Initially, the plan had been just to take along the white and red assemblages, but the rep and I had also independently decided to bring along the first release of the rosé, which our importer had not yet officially agreed to list. With an initial production of just 2,500 bottles (compared to 25,000 for the other two wines), this wine could be described as experimental, but of the three, it had an advantage.

Lots of restaurants, it seems, are looking for a super-premium pink wine that doesn’t look and taste like Whispering Angel. Our darker-hued, fuller-bodied, near-clairet style appeared to fill a potentially profitable vacuum. Where to put it on the list? one person wondered, before homing in on the idea of creating a new heading: ‘Not Provence’.

These positive reactions from several target customers were encouraging, but at best, they may still only lead to getting the wine into some of their cellars. One still has to move it that extra step: onto the tables. Clearly, enthusing the staff is key to this, but it’s no silver bullet. They - and their customers - almost certainly already have wines they know and like. Why should they switch to a new one that may take more time and effort to explain during a service session when other tables are calling for attention? And this is presuming we’re talking about restaurants with better-than-average staff retention.

If they like that…

One tactic I employed was to encourage the somm or servers to imagine for themselves where, in the wide range of styles of wine, mine might most closely fit. The majority opinion was that the white is like a love child of north-east Italy (Alto Adige or Friuli freshness) and the fleshiness of a white Northern Rhône, though Godello and ‘serious white Vinho Verde’ were also suggested. The red also struck tasters as being quite Italian (serious modern Valpolicella or Ruche), but again with a Rhôney note and possibly some kinship with top-end cru Beaujolais.

Is this exercise going to help them/us sell more bottles? I cannot say, but I’m hoping that knowing a diner is already leaning towards those styles will make it easier to propose our wines as logical alternatives, rather than simply saying, ‘Hey, how would you like to try an unfamiliar wine from Georgia?’

QR codes?

We’re also thinking of doing something with a QR code linked to a little video clip using all that brilliant new footage we hope to have shot, but where are we going to put the code? On the bottle? On the glass? On a card? Which, if any, of these is the restaurant prepared to accept? And how to get its customers to scan it anyway?

All of which brings us back to the tried-and-tested model of sampling: offering the restaurant a few bottles when they first list the wine, to allow them to give a small taste to the customers most likely to appreciate it, and/or to offer it by the glass.

As ever, time will tell whether the enthusiastic reception we had from all those people we visited translates into listings, and if those lead to sales.

While I’m waiting to find out, and after talking to a few restaurateurs, somms and sales reps, I thought I’d offer a few words of advice to others who are about to follow in my footsteps.

(I apologise to those for whom nothing I’ve written here is new. From what I’ve been told, however, far too many producers still seem to believe that promoting their wine consists of pouring it, trotting out the same old script about terroir and waiting for the first order.)

1) Assume that your wine is probably not going to sell itself.

2) Take the trouble to think about who is most likely to drink it and where.

3) Focus sales efforts on businesses most likely to be dealing with those people.

4) Do some homework on the target restaurants and the region. How long have they been going? What’s happening around them, economically, socially and maybe even politically. Are new businesses opening - or closing? Are younger people moving in, or out? Is tourism a relevant factor?

5) Tailor your presentation to the potential customer. Talk to them in terms and language they understand. If they don’t want terroir geek-talk, don’t offer it.

6) Even more crucially, listen to them and take the time to read their lists - ideally before turning up. Read the whole list; don’t be like some French producers I was told about, who apparently just glance at what’s on offer from their region.

7) Use your understanding of the list to learn where and how your wine will fit into it - or if it will fit at all. If you have an importer/distributor, hopefully, they will have done this homework for you, but don’t rely on this.

8) Establish and be honest about where else in the locality your wine is and isn’t already being sold. So, yes to a nearby Michelin-starred restaurant, but no to the nearest discount supermarket chain.

9) Don’t focus all your attention on the somm or the boss. They may be the person who’ll place the order, but they might not be the one who does the actual selling.

10) Provide the ammunition that will help make those sales. This will vary, but it should include the ‘story’ (and if the best you can do is say that you inherited/bought the estate and really care about terroir, go away and come up with something better).

Your presentation may include scores and medals if you have any to boast about, but, especially nowadays, be ready for somms who say they have no interest in any of these. Talk about food and wine matching, by all means, but stick to what’s relevant to the cuisine on offer.

11) Offer to supply a few sample bottles to enable the restaurant to sell your wine by the glass and/or offer small tasting samples of it to regular customers.

12) Where practicable, offer to host an event for the restaurant’s customers, either solely for your brand or in tandem with another compatible producer whose wines they are listing. Ideally, you should do this in person, but a well-informed representative could be an acceptable alternative, maybe with the help of a video message.

13) If you’re lucky and/or skilled enough to get a listing from a restaurant, consider promoting the availability of your wine there on social media.

14) Finally, never forget that getting your wine on a restaurant list is like packing a child off to a distant boarding school - but worse. You have no idea how it will fare, and, unlike the teachers, the restaurant will make no promise to look after your precious vinous offspring. Pupils who misbehave get expelled; wines that don’t sell get delisted. So, unless you can rely on your distributor to do so and inform you, try to keep an eye on how it is performing (via the regularity of orders). And, if it is at all possible, at least occasionally try to go and eat in the places that sell your wine.

Of all of these, 1) is still by far the simplest, most important and least appreciated.