It’s one thing to launch a brand new wine program, but coming into an existing program as a new beverage or wine director often requires a different mindset and skillset than building a wine list from the ground up.
“It’s almost like moving into a friend’s house,” says Tira Johnson, the beverage director for several New York City restaurants within the We All Gotta Eat hospitality group. “You’re trying to get your bearings and figure out where the silverware and coffee mugs are, while also trying to make it your home.”
Ego and personal preference have little place in a successful transition. Having previously come into a wine list that felt specific to one person’s taste, “you see the pros and cons of something that represents a single person’s point of view,” says Monica Halliday, the restaurant manager and sommelier of San Diego’s Garibaldi. “So I really wanted to shy away from making it my list.”
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Sudden overhauls can also potentially alienate existing staff and guests, and be financially reckless. In doing so, “you’re not really running a program,” says Francisco Joseph, the wine director and general manager of Sifr in Chicago. “You’re just putting your thoughts on a piece of paper and not being mindful of the money that’s gone into the product you already have in house.”
SevenFifty Daily spoke with seven wine and beverage directors who have taken over existing wine programs in the last couple of years. Beyond taking an ego-less approach, they shared their first steps and best practices for ensuring a seamless transition that centers the restaurant’s style, goals, staff, and guests, while instituting subtle changes to make the program their own.
Start with Inventory and Organization
Getting a handle on the existing inventory and its organization (or lack thereof) should be a day-one priority when stepping into a new wine program.
“I have a history in inventory management,” says Charlotte Marshall, the general manager and beverage director of Nic + Junior’s Tavern in Chicago, who was specifically recruited to create order in the existing beverage program. “I want to see whatever the last inventory report says and how it’s set up, but it also has to be hands-on. Where is every bottle? What does every bottle look like?”
“The program I inherited didn’t really do a monthly inventory, and they also had no bin locations, which was a big problem for me, so I did a full audit on my own and created a bin system right away,” says Johnson. She then inputted the system into inventory and financial reporting tool Craftable; that included prices which were sometimes missing in the previous spreadsheet system and required digging into past invoices to find.
This audit may also include how the inventory translates to the printed menu. “I did my own inventory and put my eyes on everything to make sure that what I was reading on the inventory form was accurate, and find out whether all the labels were written correctly on the wine list,” says Will Curley, the assistant food and beverage director of Kimpton The Forum Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia. “It’s an aesthetic audit as well as a financial one.”
Undertake a Financial Assessment Before Setting Goals
Assessing sales reports and P&L statements and evaluating margins also require immediate attention from incoming wine directors, even if changes related to those analyses are often made more gradually.
Kenny Koda inherited an ambitious program as the wine director at The National in Telluride, Colorado. With limited storage space, it required big-picture thinking from a financial standpoint as a first measure, especially at a restaurant in a resort town that experiences a huge volume shift between seasons and needs to earn a year’s worth of income in less than nine months.
“I looked at their product mix report since they opened, and I looked at the volume of sales and average price point,” says Koda. “My goal was to get them to a certain total inventory price point, and during the busy season, try to flip that total inventory price every 10 days.”
In discussing potential wine list changes with the owners, “they wanted wine that went with their food,” he says, rather than trophy bottles or familiar selections, “and we both understood what our customers wanted to spend. So I identified about a third of the wine list that didn’t make sense given those parameters.” Once Koda zeroed in on the necessary price margin for the program’s wines, he made it his goal to find new bottles with the best quality for the price. “How can I give my customers something they’re gonna be completely psyched about, that allows us the margin we need to make, and they don’t feel like they’re getting ripped off?” he says.
Other wine directors might find that a price decrease is warranted after undertaking a financial analysis. “I noticed that the markups were really high,” says Johnson, “and I think right now we don’t want to block people from buying wine. So many people were bringing corkage here, and it’s like, ‘I wonder why?’” Even in an exclusive, high-end, tasting-menu restaurant such as Sushi Noz, guests understand value. “I want people to recognize a good deal,” she says, regardless of whether they have the money to spend. “I’ve been trying to lower prices to differentiate us from other restaurants.”
Take Time to Observe and Get Staff Input
While not every wine program demands a total overhaul, an incoming wine director might find they’ve inherited a wine list that is misaligned with the restaurant format, current food menu, or local community. Many wine directors recommend pausing to observe and understand the restaurant before making any major changes, as well as soliciting input from all levels of staff.
“Even though I’m a veteran of Telluride, I needed to learn the flow of the restaurant, and I needed to learn the staff because I don’t sell wines by the glass. The servers do,” says Koda, noting that BTG comprises 50 percent of his total wine sales. He spent a full season working with the current inventory and learning the interests and abilities of the staff before undertaking any major changes.
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“I’m getting into different parts of the day and different days of the week, seeing what the crowd is, and making sure the wine list is broad enough to appeal to everyone,” says Ian Kennedy-Moulton, who took over as wine director at One40 Rooftop in New York City last month. “I’m talking to the staff about what they’ve seen move, what they like, what’s easy to sell, and what goes well with our food,” he says. “If the staff is excited to sell it, it will move.” Joseph concurs: “If you start putting things on your list that your team is either familiar with or loves, that amounts to built-in sales.”
The kitchen team may also have vital input when it comes to the shape of the overall wine program. “Wine is only partially complete until you pair it with the food,” says Halliday, “so I absolutely try to get our executive chef and our chef de cuisine involved in those decisions whenever possible.”
Roll Out Wine Changes Slowly
When it’s time to implement changes to the wine program, incremental ones are more responsible, both financially and culturally, than a complete revision in one go.
“I’ll have a lot of ideas, but choosing what to do first is usually a matter of ease in terms of what the staff can take and run with,” says Joseph. Though he inherited a BTG list where three of the five white wines were Chardonnays, Joseph allowed them to organically sell out before adding new selections. “I burned through a lot of paper reprinting, but I just felt like it is more responsible to get through something and then plan a change, versus flipping the entire thing over today,” he says.
While a sommelier team may be educationally equipped to handle a lot of new listings in one go, the makeup and wine knowledge of the staff at hand may dictate what can be changed in a short period of time. “We don’t have a huge professional class of servers in Charlottesville,” says Curley, “so we hire folks for their energy, for their work ethic, for their drive, for their personality, and for their emotional intelligence, and we give them the tools within that.” That necessarily involves giving them time to adjust to a new wine menu incrementally.
“At Chez Fifi, which is our wine-heavy restaurant where we go through a lot of by-the-glass, I try to make sure we’re talking about that new BTG for a whole week, and one at a time,” says Johnson, “so you’re not flipping the whole BTG list all at once.”
Get Creative to Move Old Inventory
In order to add new wines to a program, it’s essential to clear out stagnant selections—a task that is often easier said than done. “The first step for me is looking at what needs to be consumed first,” says Marshall. “I want to move my whites and my rosés so that someone’s drinking them when they’re supposed to be drunk.”
Discounts and incentives can help. “I made some really appealing deals to get things moving, but that don’t necessarily take a lot of new training for the staff in terms of knowledge,” says Joseph. He implemented a weekly half-off wine day, which encourages business on slower nights and empowers guests to take some risks with less familiar bottles.
Bundling wines in flights and offering pairings can also be a helpful tactic, especially in concepts that rely on servers rather than somms. “I really love working with pairings,” says Johnson, “because it allows you to use up some SKUs that people aren’t going to just straight up order from a bottle list.”
“Sometimes we’ll walk the floor with a bottle and give out little tasters of something that doesn’t move well and people seem unwilling to take a chance on,” adds Halliday. “You can get a little spontaneous buy-in that way, especially if something is a little funky or unusual, because you’ve taken the risk out.”
In instances where a bottle really isn’t moving, or is at the risk of becoming past its prime, the broader beverage program can also be part of the solution. “Rather than ascribe something to the loss column, we might be able to find a creative way to use it,” says Curley. “We have a great sangria program, and we’re experimenting with things like wine reductions for our cocktail list, which gives it a longer shelf life.”
Make an Impact While Minimizing Costs
Incoming wine directors don’t necessarily have to add new SKUs to make their mark on the beverage program; other changes can be impactful without incurring significant costs.
“Sake accounted for about 60 to 70 percent of our beverage sales,” says Johnson, “so I changed how it was formatted on the menu.” Rather than by grade, which she felt most guests weren’t familiar with, “I categorized them by style,” she says, including headings such as “fresh and lively” or “rich and earthy.” “This has really made it easier for people to navigate the sake list,” she says, and which has garnered positive feedback from the sommeliers on her staff.
Rather than expanding a list, reducing the number of bottles can be easier on staff and guests. “We had so many SKUs,” says Marshall, “and having this crazy list that’s very overwhelming was not serving us very well, especially since people are generally drinking less wine. So my goal was getting the list under 40 SKUs, and keeping the price point for bottles under $150.”
Even if a new wine director is not writing a list from scratch, they have an opportunity to bring their own perspective to a wine program while creating essential revenue. The key to a smooth transition is detail, understanding, and measured action.
Dispatch
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Pamela Vachon is a freelance writer whose work on food, beverages, travel, and especially the intersection of those elements has appeared in Food & Wine, Wine Enthusiast, Travel & Leisure, VinePair, and Bon Appétit, among others. She was formerly a bartender and captain at New York’s The Modern, and teaches classes at Murray’s Cheese. She splits her time between London, New York, and Castlerea, Ireland, where she hopes one day to make cheese.
